sie and stayed at the same hotel here with her and her
friends a whole Saturday and Sunday, wouldn't you?"

Johanna's modest smile glittered across her face as she slowly replied,
"No-o, seh, I cayn't 'zac'ly fine myseff ama-aze', 'caze Miss Barb done
wrote about it in her letteh."

"Psheh!" said John, playing incredulous, "you ain't got air letter from
Miss Barb."

The girl was flattered to ecstasy. "Yass, seh, I is," she said; but her
soft laugh meant also that something in the way he faltered on the dear
nickname made her heart leap.

"Now, Johanna," murmured John, looking more roguishly than he knew from
under his long lashes, "you' a-foolin' me. If you had a letter you'd be
monst'ous proud to show it. All you've got is a line or two saying,
'Send me my shawl,' or something o' that sort."

Johanna glanced up with injured surprise and then tittered, "Miss Barb
wear a shawl--fo' de Lawd's sa-ake! Why, Mr. March, evm you knows
betteh'n dat, seh." Her glow of happiness stayed while she drew forth a
letter and laid it by her cup of coffee.

"Oh!"--the sceptic tossed his head--"seein's believin'; but I can't see
so far off."

Johanna could hardly speak for grinning. "Dass heh letteh, seh, writ de
ve'y same night what she tell you good-by."

"She wrote it"--John's heart came into his mouth--"that same night?"

"Dass what it saay, seh. D'ain't nothin' so ve'y private in it; ef yo'
anteress encline you to read it, why----"

"Thank you," said the convert as his long arm took the prize.

There were three full sheets of it. He found himself mentioned again and
again, but covertly drew his breath through his clenched teeth to see
how necessary he had made himself to every page of her narrative and how
utterly he was left out when not so needed. "She'll not get the same
chance again," he thought as he finished.

"Johanna, have you--never mind, I was----" And he began to read it
again.

Sitting thus absorbed, he was to the meek-minded girl before him as
strong and fine a masculine nature as she had ever knowingly come near.
But his intelligence was only masculine at last--a young man's
intelligence. She kept her eyes in her plate; yet she had no trouble to
see, perfectly, that her confidence was not ill-advised--a confidence
that between the letter's lines he would totally fail to read what she
had read.

One thing was disappointing. As often as read to her, the letter had
seemed to sparkle and overflow with swee