ich had been closed for a month
while its proprietors took a holiday, had reopened, but the days were
still warm, and little was doing. This afternoon, with its shaded
windows and its autumn decorations of goldenrod and asters, it looked
cool and inviting.

Marion, who had been reading when Charlotte entered, laid her book on
the table and motioned to a place beside her in the window-seat. "What
have you to show me?" she asked.

"You'll never guess, so I shall have to tell you. And, oh, Miss
Marion, I want to ask you something, but I'm afraid."

"Am I so very formidable? I can't imagine what it can be. I'll promise
not to answer if I do not like the question."

"It isn't that," cried Charlotte. "It is nothing I want you to tell
me, it is something I want you to do."

"Then I am more puzzled than ever. Do let me see what you have. Is it
a book?"

For answer Charlotte slipped the outer cover from a small green and
gold volume and put it into Marion's hand, drawing near and leaning
against her shoulder as she did so. "It is Cousin Frank's book," she
said. "It came while he was with us at Rocky Point. He gave me the
very first. Isn't it a dear?"

Marion turned the leaves in silence. "Love's Reason, and Other Poems,"
the title-page said. She turned another leaf, "To One Far Away," was
the dedication. She paused here for a moment, then went on turning the
pages.

"It is a very pretty little book," she said, in a tone that seemed to
Charlotte less interested than the occasion called for.

"I thought you'd like it, because I have talked to you so much about
Cousin Frank. And, oh, Miss Marion, it is about Miss Carpenter I want
to ask you." Charlotte's head was against Marion's arm, and she did
not lift her eyes.

"It was one evening when Cousin Frank and I were sitting on the sand
in the moonlight. Some man--I forget his name, but at any rate he is a
great critic--stopped us as we were leaving the hotel, to say
something very nice about the poems; and I asked Cousin Frank if he
were not pleased. He said he was glad, of course, to have it liked,
and he valued this man's judgment; but that after all it was for the
opinion of just one person he cared the most. I was certain it must be
Miss Carpenter, because of the dedication,--that couldn't mean any one
else; so I said I knew she must like it. He looked at me in such a
funny way and asked what I meant. So I told him what I had guessed,
and he did not seem to mind.