an as a sister might influence an older brother;
cheering--helping--warning."

"Warning!" murmured Barbara, with drooping head and slower step. "You
don't know what an evil gift of untimely silence I've got. If I've
failed all my life long as a daughter, in just what you're supposing of
me----"

"O come, now, Miss----"

"Don't stop me! Why, Mr. March"--she looked up, and as she brushed back
a hair from her ear John thought her hand shook; but when she smiled he
concluded he had been mistaken--"I've been wanting these whole three
days to warn you of something which, since it concerns your fortunes,
concerns nearly everyone I know, and especially my father. Is it
meddlesome for me to be solicitous about your ambitions and plans for
Widewood, Mr. March?"

"Now, Miss Garnet! You know I'd consider it an honor and a delight--Miss
Barb. What do you want to warn me against? Mind, I don't say I'll take
your warning; but I'll prize the friendship that----"

"I owe it to my father."

"Oh, yes, yes! I don't mean to claim--aha! I thought that tolling was
for fire! Here comes one of the engines!--Better take my arm a
minute--I--I think you'd better--till the whirlwind passes."

She took it, and before they reached a crossing on whose far side she
had promised herself to relinquish it, another engine rushed by. This
time they stood aside under an arch with her hand resting comfortably in
his elbow. It still rested there when they had resumed their walk, only
stirring self-reproachfully when John incautiously remarked the street's
restored quietness.

Barbara was silent. When they had gone some distance farther John asked,

"Have I forfeited your solicitude? Will you not warn me, after all?" He
looked at her and she looked at him, twice, but speech would not come;
her lips only parted, broke into a baffled smile, and were grave again.

"I suppose, of course, it's against measures, not men, as they say,
isn't it?"

"It's against men," said Barbara.

"That surprises me," replied John, with a puzzled smile.

"Why, Mr. March, you can't suppose, do you, that your high ambitions and
purposes----"

"Oh, they're not mine; they're my father's. The details and execution
are mine----"

"But, anyhow, you share them; you've said so. You don't suppose your
associates----"

"What; share them the same way I do? Why, no, Miss Barb; it wouldn't be
fair to expect that, would it? And yet, in a certain way, on a lower
plane--from a si