onfident enough.

"Well, what is she like? Can't you describe her? Has she seared your
eyes with her loveliness?"

"She hasn't seared my eyes. She has only opened them. Listen to me,
you thing of mud! She is just a little brown streak."

"That's an odd description of a woman."

"It's the correct one, though. She's just a little brown streak of a
thing."

"Well, I've heard of a man in love with a dream, and in love with a
shadow, but never before did I hear of one infatuated with a streak.
Where did you meet this creature? Have you known her long?"

"Only for a month or so, and but slightly. We have not met half a
dozen times. It was only tonight, you see, that I began to know her
well. We talked together, and I got a glimpse of her real self--of her
slender little body, of her earthly tenement, of course, I had an idea
before. She is a lissom thing, with eyes like wells, and with a way to
her which conveys the idea of wisdom without wickedness, and which
makes a man wish he were not what he is, and were more fitted to
associate with her."

"That's one good effect, anyhow. I don't know of any man who more
needed to meet such a woman. How long do you expect this influence to
last?"

"Longer than one of your good resolutions, my son; as long as she will
have anything to do with me."

"Does this brown streak of a saint live in the city? Is her shrine
easy of access? What are you going to do about it?"

"She's not a saint; she's a piquant, cultivated woman; but she is
different, somehow, from any other I've ever met."

"You've met a good many, my boy."

His face fell a little.

"Yes," he said, "and I almost wish it were different; but the past is
not all there is of being. There's a heap of comfort in that."

"Cupid has thumped you with his bird-bolt, certainly. Why, man, you
don't mean to say that you're in earnest--that you are really stricken;
that this promises to be something unlike all other heart or head
troubles with you?"

He laughed.

"I am inclined to believe that the gravest diagnosis is the correct
one."

"But how about the present Mrs. Harlson?"

No friend less close than I could have asked such a question. I almost
repented it myself, when I noted the look which came upon the man's
face after its utterance.

I suppose such a look might come to one in prison, who, in the midst of
some pleasant fancy, has forgotten his surroundings, and is awakened to
reason and sudde