s of the porch and wept, more than was right, I
fear, for a girl just betrothed. Earl was a cripple and poor and
helpless, but Barbara knew better than we, for she knew how to give
herself. Poor little one, whom nobody congratulated! She sends you and
Hester her love, unfolding you both in her eager tenderness.

DANE.

VI

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME

LONDON.
November 19, 19--.

Metaphysics is contagious. I caught it from Barbara, and I cannot resist
the impulse to pass it on, and to you of all others.

The mood leapt upon Barbara out of the pages of "Katia," a story by
Tolstoy. To my mind, it is a painful tale of lovers who outlive their
love, killing it with their own hands, but the author means it to be a
happily ending novel. Tolstoy attempts to show that men and women can
find happiness only when they grow content to give over seeking love
from one another. They may keep the memory but must banish the hope.
"Hereafter, think of me only as the father of your children," and the
woman who had pined for that which had been theirs in the beginning of
their union weeps softly, and agrees. Tolstoy calls this peace, but for
Barbara and me this gain is loss, this end an end indeed, replete with
all the tragedy of ending.

I found Barbara to-day on the last page of "Katia," and much disturbed.
"Dear, I saw a spirit break," she said. I waited before asking whose,
and when I did, she answered, "That of three-quarters of the world. The
ghost of a Dream walked to-day--when after the spirit broke, I saw
it--and myself and my Earl vanished in shadow. We and our love thinned
away before the thought-shape."

"Your dreaming, Barbara, can scarce be better than your living."

We looked long at each other. She knew herself a happy woman, yet to-day
the ghost had walked in the light, and her eyes were not held, and she
saw. Even her life was not sufficient, even her plans were paltry, even
her heart's love was cramped. Such times of seeing come to happy men and
to happy women. Barbara was reading the opinions of the world and the
acceptances of the world, and in disliking them she came to doubt
herself. Perhaps she, too, should be less at peace, she too may be
amongst Pharisees a Pharisee.

"In the midst of the breaking of spirit, how can I know?" she demanded.
"Love is sure," I prompted, my hand on her forehead. "Earl and I are
sure, dear," she laughed low, and a drift of sobbing swept through the
music; "it is not t