o ready for his opportunities and so devoted to
becoming a sailor missionary. What a noble boy he was! She had never
loved him as she loved him at this moment, as he stood there in all his
young strength and beauty, willing to give up his own planned life to
serve the mother whom his sisters had cast off. He was like that hero she
had read about--rather were not all true heroes like him? It was queer,
she had not thought of it once since;--why did she think of it now?--but,
that day Miss Prudence had come to see her so long ago, the day she found
her asleep in her chair, she had been reading in her Sunday school
library about some one like Morris, just as unselfish, just as ready to
serve Christ anywhere, and--perhaps it was foolish and childish--she
would be ashamed to tell any one beside God about it--she had asked him
to let some one love her like him, and then she had fallen asleep. Oh,
and--Morris had not given her that thing he had brought to her. Perhaps
it was a book she wanted, she was always wanting a book--or it might be
some curious thing from Italy. Had he forgotten it? She cared to have it
now more than she cared last night; what was the matter with her last
night that she cared so little? She did "look up" to him more than she
knew herself, she valued his opinion, she was more to herself because she
was so much to him. There was no one in the world that she opened her
heart to as she opened it to him; not Miss Prudence, even, sympathetic as
she was; she would not mind so very, very much if he knew about that
foolish, childish prayer. But she could not ask him what he had brought
her; she had almost, no, quite, refused it last night. How contradictory
and uncomfortable she was! She must say good-bye, now, too.

During her reverie she had retreated to the front parlor and stood
leaning over the closed piano, her wraps all on for school and shawl
strap of books in her hand.

"O, Marjorie, ready for school! May I walk with you? I'll come back and
see Miss Prudence afterward."

"Will you?" she asked, demurely; "but that will only prolong the agony of
saying good-bye."

"As it is a sort of delicious agony we do not need to shorten it.
Good-bye, Prue," he cried, catching one of Prue's curls in his fingers as
he passed. "You will be a school-girl with a shawl strap of books, by and
by, and you will put on airs and think young men are boys."

Prue stood in the doorway calling out "goodbye" as they went down th