r farewell meeting. It is night
and they are coming from Captain Morton's.

Hand in hand they skip across the lawn, and soon are hidden in the
veranda. They sit arm in arm, on a swinging porch chair, and have no
great need for words. "What is it--what is the reason?" asked the youth.

"Well, dear"--it is an adventure to say the word out loud after
whispering it for so many days--"dear," she repeated, and feels the
pressure of his arm as she speaks, "it's something about you!"

"But what?" he persisted.

"We don't know now," she returns. "And really what does it matter, only
we can't hurt grandma, and it won't be for long. It can't be for long,
and then--"

"We don't care now,--not to-night, do we?" She lifts her head from his
shoulder, and puts up her lips for the answer. It is all new--every
thrill of the new-found joy of one another's being is strange; every
touch of the hands, of cheeks, every pressure of arms--all are
gloriously beautiful.

Once in life may human beings know the joy these lovers knew that night.
The angels lend it once and then, if we are good, they let us keep it in
our memories always. If not, then God sends His infinite pity instead.

CHAPTER XLIV

IN WHICH WE SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN, WITH GEORGE BROTHERTON, AND IN
GENERAL CONSIDER THE HABITANTS OF THE KINGDOM

Mr. Brotherton had been pacing the deck of his store like the captain of
a pirate ship in a storm. Nothing in the store suited him; he found Miss
Calvin's high facade of hair too rococo for the attenuated lines of gray
and lavender and heliotrope that had replaced the angular effects in red
and black and green and brown of former years. He had asked her to tone
it down to make it match the long-necked gray jars and soft copper vases
that adorned the gray burlapped Serenity, and she had appeared with it
slopping over her ears, "as per yours of even date!" And still he paced
the deck.

He picked up Zola's "Fecundite," which he had taken from stock; tried to
read it; put it down; sent for "Tom Sawyer"; got up, went after
Dickens's "Christmas Books," and put them down; peeped into "Little
Women," and watched the trade, as Miss Calvin handled it, occasionally
dropping his book for a customer; hunted for "The Three Bears," which he
found in large type with gorgeous pictures, read it, and decided that it
was real literature.

Amos Adams came drifting in to borrow a book. He moved slowly, a sort of
gray wraith almost discarnat