lts too."

"No; but I've always revered mom-a so deeply that except once or twice
to Fannie, when Fannie spoke first, I've never talked about her." Yet
Barbara went on telling of her mother from a full heart, her ears
ravished by the music of John's interjected approvals. They talked again
of his father also, and found sweet resemblances between the two dear
ones. Only as they re-entered the hotel were both at once for a moment
silent. Half way up the stairs, among the foliage plants of a landing
ablaze with gas, they halted, while John, beginning,

"Two hearts that love the same fair things"--

recited one of his mother's shorter poems.

"Why, Mr. March!" His hearer's whisper only emphasized her sincere
enthusiasm. "Did your mother--why, that's per-fect-ly beau-ti-ful!"

They parted, but soon met again in one of the parlors. Mrs. Fair came,
too, but could not linger, having left Mr. Fair upstairs asleep on a
lounge. She bade Barbara stay and hear all the manuscript poems Mr.
March could be persuaded to read, and only regretted that her duty
upstairs prevented her remaining herself. "Good-by," she said to John.
"Now, whenever you come to Boston, remember, you're to come directly to
us."

John responded gratefully, and Barbara, as the two sat down upon a very
small divan with the batch of manuscript between them, told him, in a
melodious undertone, that she feared she couldn't stay long.

"What's that?" she asked, as he took up the first leaf to put it by.

"This? Oh, this is the poem I tried to recite to you on the stairs."

"Read it again," she said, not in her usual monotone, but with a soft
eagerness of voice and eye quite new to him, and extremely stimulating.
He felt an added exaltation when, at the close of the middle stanza, he
saw her hands knit into each other and a gentle rapture shining through
her drooping lashes; and at the end, when she sighed her admiration in
only one or two half-formed words, twinkled her feet and bit her lip,
his exaltation rose almost to inebriety. He could have sat there and
read to her all night.

Yet that was the only poem she heard. The title of the next one, John
said as he lifted it, was, "If I should love again;" but Barbara asked a
dreamy question of a very general character; he replied, then asked one
in turn; they discussed--she introducing the topic--the religious duty
and practicability of making all one's life and each and every part of
it good poetry, and