ioned the rapid and happy growth of their
acquaintance!

"Yes," he replied, betraying fresh pain under an effort to speak
lightly. "It may be a right smart while before I see you again, Miss
Barb. I take the first express to Chicago, and next month I sail for
Europe to----"

"Why, Mr. March!" said Barbara with a nervous laugh.

"Yes," responded John once more, thinking that if she was going to treat
the thing as a joke he had better do the same, "immigrants for Widewood
have got to be got, and they're not to be got on this side the big
water."

"Why, Mr. March!"--her laugh grew--"How long shall you stay?"

"Stay! Gracious knows! I must just stay till I get them!--as your father
says."

"Why, Mr. March! When did--" the questioner's eyes dropped sedately to
the ground--"when did you decide to go? Since--since--yesterday?"

"Yes, it was!" The answer came as though it were a whole heart-load.

The maiden's color rose, but she lifted her quiet, characteristic gaze
to his and said, "You're glad you're going, are you not?"

"O--I--why, yes! If I'm not I know I ought to be! To see Europe and all
that is great, of course. It's beyond my dreams. And yet I know it
really isn't as much what I'm going to as what I'm going from that I
ought to--to be g-glad of! I hope I'll come back with a little more
sense. I'm going to try. I promise you, Miss Barb. It's only right I
_should_ promise--_you_!"

"Why, Mr. Mar--" Her voice was low, but her color increased.

"Miss Barb--O Miss Barb, I didn't come just to say good-by. I hope I
know what I owe you better than that. I--Miss Barb, I came to
acknowledge that I said too much yesterday!--and to--ask your pardon."

Barbara was crimson. "Mr. March!" she said, half choking, "as long as I
was simple enough to let it pass unrebuked you might at least have
spared me your apologies! No, I can't stay! No, not one instant! Those
girls are coming to speak to me--that man"--it was the drummer--"wants
to speak to you. Good-by."

Their intruders were upon them. John could only give a heart-broken look
as she faltered an instant in the open door. For reply she called back,
in poor mockery of a sprightly tone: "I hope you'll have ever so
pleasant a voyage!" and shut the door.

So it goes with all of us through all the ungraceful, inartistic
realisms of our lives; the high poetry is ever there, the kingdom of
romance is at hand; the only trouble is to find the rhymes--O! if we
could only fi