ly imagination, but sometimes I think I can smell the salt--or taste
it. That's scarcely possible, though, for we're a good twenty miles
inland."

"I'm not so sure," he answered. "Lots of times I've thought I could
smell the ocean here. Does it take very long to get to Portsmouth or the
beach? Couldn't we go some day, you and Miss Mullett and the Doctor and
I?"

"That would be jolly," said Eve. "We must talk it over with them. I'm
afraid, though, the Doctor couldn't go. There's always some one sick
hereabouts."

"Oh, he could leave enough of his nasty medicine one day to last through
the next. He's one of the nicest old chaps I ever met, Miss Walton. He's
awfully fond of you, isn't he?"

"I think he is," she answered, "and I'm awfully fond of him, I don't
know whether I ought to tell this, but I have a suspicion that he used
to be very fond of my mother before she was married. He's told me so
many little things about her, and he always speaks of her in such a
quiet, dear sort of way. I wonder--I wonder if he ever asked her to
marry him."

"Somehow I don't believe he ever did," said Wade, thoughtfully. "I could
imagine him being sort of shy if he were in love. Perhaps, while he was
working his courage up to the sticking point, your father stepped in and
carried off the prize. That happens sometimes, you know."

"I suppose it does," laughed Eve. "Or perhaps he was so busy quoting
bits of poetry to her that he never had time!"

"That's so." Wade smiled. "There's one thing certain, and that is, if
she did refuse him, he had a quotation quite ready for the occasion."

"''Tis better to have loved and lost' and so on?"

"Something of the sort," answered Wade. "I wonder, though, if that is
true, Miss Walton?"

"What?" asked Eve.

"That it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at
all."

"I'm sure I don't know. Probably not. Perhaps, like a great many of the
Doctor's quotations, it's more poetical than truthful."

"I think it must be," mused Wade. "It doesn't sound logical to me. To
say that, when you've seen a thing you want and can't have it, you're
better off than before you wanted it, doesn't sound like sense."

"Have you ever wanted much you didn't get?" asked Eve.

Wade thought a minute.

"Come to think of it, Miss Walton, I don't believe I have. I can't think
of anything just now. Perhaps that's why I'd hate all the more to be
deprived of what I want now," he said, seriously. She sho