of comparison would
be, and they go away home and hide their heads."

"I don't see, Mr. Mangan," she said, in a somewhat low voice, and yet a
little proudly too, "why you should fear comparison with any one--no,
not with any one; or imagine that anything could--could displace you in
the regard of your friends."

He hesitated again--anxious, eager, and yet afraid. At last he said,
rather sadly,

"I wish I knew something of your ideals, and how far away beyond human
possibility they are."

"Oh, I can tell you," she said, plucking up heart of grace, for here was
an easy way out of an embarrassing position. "My ideal woman is Sister
Alexandra, of the East London Hospital. She was down here last
Sunday--sweeter, more angelic than ever. That is the noblest type of
woman I know. And I was so glad she enjoyed her rare holiday; and when
she went away in the evening we had her just loaded with flowers for her
ward."

"And the ideal man?"

"Oh," said Miss Francie, hurriedly, "I hardly know about that. Of
course, when I--when I spoke of Linn a little while ago, I did not wish
to say anything against him--certainly not--no one admires his better
qualities more than I do--but--but there may be other qualities--"

They were come to the wooden gate opening on to the highway; he paused
ere he lifted the latch.

"Francie," said he, "do you think that some day you might be induced to
put aside all your high standards and ideals, and--and--in short, accept
a battered old journalist, without money, position, distinction, without
any graces, except this, that gratitude might add something to his
affection for you?"

Tears sprang into her eyes, and yet there was a smile there, too; she
was not wholly frightened--perhaps she had known all along.

"Ah, and you don't understand yet, Maurice!" she said, and she frankly
gave him her hand, and her eyes were kind even through her tears. "You
don't understand what I have been saying to you, that a girl's ideal is
one particular person--her ideal is the man or woman whom she admires
and loves the most. Can you not guess?"

"Francie, you will be my wife?" he said to her, drawing her closer to
him, his hands clasped round her head.

She did not answer. She was silent for a second or two. And then she
said, with averted eyes,

"You spoke of gratitude, Maurice. I know who has the most reason to be
grateful--and who will try the hardest to show it."

So that betrothal was completed; and