hetic little bundles must be taught some time what
ingratitude deserves.

"How can she run, lame as she is?" said Edward from the doorway.

"You are not going away, are you? Tell me you are not," sobbed Felipa in
a passion of tears, beating on the floor with one hand, and with the
other clinging to Christine.

"I am not going," said Edward. "Do not sob so, you poor little thing!"

She crawled to him, and he took her up in his arms and soothed her into
stillness again; then he carried her out on the barren for a breath of
fresh air.

"It is a most extraordinary thing how that child confounds you two," I
said. "It is a case of color-blindness, as it were--supposing you two
were colors."

"Which we are not," replied Christine carelessly. "Do not stray off into
mysticism, Catherine."

"It is not mysticism; it is a study of character--"

"Where there is no character," replied my friend.

I gave it up, but I said to myself: "Fate, in the next world make me one
of those long, lithe, light-haired women, will you? I want to see how it
feels."

Felipa's foot was well again, and spring had come. Soon we must leave
our lodge on the edge of the pine-barren, our outlook over the
salt-marsh, with the river sweeping up twice a day, bringing in the
briny odors of the ocean; soon we should see no more the eagles far
above us or hear the night-cry of the great owls, and we must go without
the little fairy flowers of the barren, so small that a hundred of them
scarcely made a tangible bouquet, yet what beauty! what sweetness! In my
portfolio were sketches and studies of the salt-marsh, and in my heart
were hopes. Somebody says somewhere: "Hope is more than a blessing; it
is a duty and a virtue." But I fail to appreciate preserved hope--hope
put up in cans and served out in seasons of depression. I like it fresh
from the tree. And so when I hope it _is_ hope, and not that well-dried,
monotonous cheerfulness which makes one long to throw the persistent
smilers out of the window. Felipa danced no more on the barrens; her
illness had toned her down; she seemed content to sit at our feet while
we talked, looking up dreamily into our faces, but no longer eagerly
endeavoring to comprehend. We were there; that was enough.

"She is growing like a reed," I said; "her illness has left her weak."

"--Minded," suggested Christine.

At this moment Felipa stroked the lady's white hand tenderly and laid
her brown cheek against it.

"Do y