n she
whispered--

"I wish _you_ had got the chair, John. I love you best of all."

That night I hung about the kitchen while Mary Ellen was setting bread to
rise. The time had come when I must speak to some fellow creature of this
tremendous new element that had come into my life. I watched Mary Ellen's
stout red arms as she manipulated the dough, in much perplexity. The
kitchen was hot, the kettle sang, it seemed a moment for confidence, yet
words were hard to find.

At last I got out desperately:

"Mary Ellen, what is love like?"

"Love is it, Masther John? What do the likes o' me know about love thin?"
She smiled broadly, as she dexterously shifted the puffy white mass.

"Oh, _you_ know," I persisted, "'cos you've been in it, often. You've had
lots of 'followers' now, Mary Ellen, haven't you?"

"Well, thin, if ye must know, I'll tell ye point blunt to kape out av it.
It's an awful thing whin it gits the best av ye."

"But what's it _feel like_?" I probed.

Mary Ellen wiped the flour off each red finger in turn, and gazed into the
flame of the lamp.

"It's like this," she said solemnly, "ye burns in yer insides till ye feel
like ye had a furnace blazin' there. Thin whin it seems ye must bust wid
the flarin' av it, ye suddintly turns cowld as ice, an' yer sowl do shrivil
up wid fear. An' thin, at last, ye fergit all about it till the nixt wan
happens along. Och--I haven't had a sphell fer months! This is an awful
dull place. I think I'll be quittin' it soon."

"Oh, no, no, Mary Ellen!" I cried, alarmed, "you mustn't leave us! When
Jane and I get married you can come and live with us." I blushed furiously.

"And who might Jane be?" demanded Mary Ellen, suspiciously.

"She's the Bishop's great-niece," I explained proudly. "I love her
terribly, Mary Ellen. It hurts in here." I pressed my hand on my stomach.

"Well, well." She shook her head commiseratingly. "I'm sorry fer ye,
Masther John--sthartin' off like this at your age. Here's the spoon I
stirred the cake wid--have a lick o' that. It'll mebbe help ye."

I licked pensively at the big wooden spoon, and felt strangely soothed. My
admiration for Mary Ellen increased.

As I slowly climbed the stairs for bed, visions of Jane hovered in the
darkness above me--airy rainbows, with Jane's laughing face peering between
the bars of pink and gold. I had never known a little girl before, and Jane
embodied all things frail and exquisite.

When I entered our ro