e and
no good at all for another? I'm a pretty good nurse, ain't I, Tom? But
what would I be as a bareback circus-rider?"

"We aren't going to talk about it, Nell. I told you I had given it up.
But," he went on after a heavy moment, unable entirely to subjugate his
humanity--"but I wish now I had asked you before you left home."

She was too oppressed with misery to speak at once, so he amplified.

"But it seemed rather more--I don't want to call it by any such big word
as chivalrous,--it seemed rather whiter not to urge it, when
circumstances might have seemed to lay a compulsion on you. Then it
seemed better to let all the talk, the unpleasantness, in Denver die
down first. Then, too, I wanted you to see the world; I liked the
thought of you having your fling. But," he reiterated, "I can't help
wishing I had followed my instinct and asked you before I let you go.
Tell the truth, Nell. Wouldn't you have had me then?"

"I suppose, Tom, that I should have you now if you asked me. But then or
now," she brought in quickly, "it would be a mistake. I couldn't love
you more dearly, Tom, than I do, good big brother that you've been. Dear
me, all we've been through together! Then all the fun we've had! We
couldn't change to something different without all being spoiled. You
don't seem to know, but I do, that I'm not the woman for you in that
way. We're too much alike, Tom. What you want is a little dainty woman,
delicate, quick, bright-minded, something, to find an example near at
hand, like Hattie Carver. A big fellow like you wants someone to cherish
and protect. How would any one go to work protecting and cherishing a
little darling big as a moose!"

"I might have known"--Doctor Tom made his reflections aloud,--"that a
good big husky man wouldn't have a chance with a good big husky girl
while a sickly, sad-eyed, spindle-shanked son of a gun was hanging
round!"

"There's nothing in that, I should think you'd know," said Aurora,
quickly. "I like him, of course, and I like to have him round. Haven't
you found him good company yourself? But that's just friendship.
Friendship like between a fish and a bird, and no more prospect of a
different ending than that. If that's troubling you, you can set your
mind at rest, Tom."

"It's none of my business, anyhow," said the doctor, brusquely, flinging
down his cigar and walking away from her to the mantelpiece, where he
stood looking up at her portrait, but thinking of that other