an be one of yours, so I shan't worry. Go on,
Nellie."

Nellie had observed as she paused in her reading and glanced upward,
that Jim seemed much disturbed. He was very red and his eyes seemed to
be afire. But Gabrielle did not give any of her attention to Jim, and
Nellie was too busy with her task of deciphering my wretched manuscript
to interject a gay remark at Jim's expense. Jim moistened his lips,
wiped his beading brow, and nerved himself for the worst. There were now
no quilts for him to dodge under, and no acute pain to serve as a
standing account against which he might charge these evidences of the
anguish he could not conceal.

Nellie continued, and Gabrielle forgot all about Hygeia's letter. This I
think flattering to my style.

"Listen!" commanded Nellie, and again she read:

"'Yes, my darling, dreaming always of you, night and day, surely,
surely, hope should inspire me. This is the place and now the time to
wander in love's enchanted realm. I shall not put off till your
home-coming the joys I would experience. Let my "heart be a spirit,"
and then I may be wafted to your side this minute and sit beside you
from early morn till twilight and the even-song of birds softly and
sweetly hint the flight of time. Yes--

"'He who hath loved not, here would learn that love,
And make his heart a spirit; he who knows
That tender mystery, will love the more:
For this is Love's recess, where vain men's woes,
And the world's waste, have driven him far from those--
For 'tis his nature to advance or die;
He stands not still, but or decays, or grows
Into a boundless blessing, which may vie
With the immortal lights in its eternity!'

"'And now, my darling, I must not forget to remind you that you have
quite overlooked my request for a lock of your golden hair. You
acknowledged the receipt of mine, and asked why I did not tie it in
a pretty ribbon instead of a piece of cotton thread.'"

"There is the lock of hair again!" exclaimed Gabrielle. "I saw it in the
other letter when Jim was at the hospital. It was a trifle lighter than
his. The poor girl--I suppose she thought it more precious than strands
of pure gold."

"Hair has a lot to do with love, Gabrielle," whispered Mr. Gibson.
"Think what an uphill job it would have been for Jim with a bald head."

"Never could have done it," said Jim, huskily, determined to break in
somewhere on a