fied yes. "When she sat up in her
pillows half an hour ago, with her breakfast, so delicate and tempting,
lying before her forgotten, and she looking _so_ frail and yet _so_
pretty, with that look in her eyes as if she had been seeing ghosts all
night, she seemed to me as though she'd just finished one life and begun
another. How long has she had that look, Mr. March? I noticed it the
morning she arrived, though it wasn't anything like so plain as it is
now. But it only makes her more interesting and poetical. If I were a
man--hmph!--I'd wish I were Colonel Ravenel, that's all! No, I don't
know that I should, either; but if I were not, I'm afraid I should give
him trouble." John thought she watched him an instant there, but--

"Mr. March," she went on, "I wish you could hear the beautiful, tender,
winning way in which she boasts of her husband. She's as proud of him
for going and leaving her as she is of you for staying! Fact is, _I_
can't tell which of you she's proudest of." She gave her listener a
fascinated smile, with which he showed himself at such a loss to know
what to do that she liked him still better than before.

"Mrs. Ravenel asked me to tell you how grateful she is. But she
also----"

A bell-boy interrupted with two telegrams, both addressed to Fannie.

"She also what?" asked John, mantling.

"Mr. March, do you suppose either of these is bad news?"

"No, ma'am, one's probably from Suez to say the black girl's coming, and
the other's from her husband; but if it were not good news, he was to
send it to me."

She took the telegrams in and was soon with him again. "Oh, Mr. March,
they're just as you said! Mrs. Ravenel says tell you she's better--which
is true--and to thank you once more, but to say that she can't any
longer--" the little musician poured upon him her most loving
beams--"let you make the sacrifice you're----"

John solemnly smiled. "Why, she hasn't _been_ letting me. She never
asked me to stay and she needn't ask me to go. I gave my word to _him_,
and I shall keep it--to myself." His manner grew more playful. "That's
what you'd do, wouldn't you, if you were a man?"

But at that moment his hearer was not fancying herself a man; she was
only wishing she were a younger woman. A gleam of the wish may have got
into her look as she gave him her hand at parting, for somehow he began
to have a sort of honey-sickness against femmine interests and plainly
felt his land company's business crowdin