al Ward: "Well, dear,
the nineteenth century is gone! Now let us dance and be happy in this
one."

And so she danced the new year and the new century and the new life
in, as happy as a girl of twenty can be. For was she not a Junior at
the state university, if you please? Was she not the heir of all the
ages, and a scandalous lot of millions besides, and what is infinitely
more important to a girl's happiness, was she not engaged, good and
tight, and proud of it, to a youth making twelve dollars every week
whether it rained or not? What more could an honest girl ask? And it
was all settled, and so happily settled too, that when she had
graduated with her class at the university, and had spent a year in
Europe--but that was a long way ahead, and Neal had to go to the City
with father and learn the business first. But business and graduation
and Europe were mere details--the important thing had happened. So
when it was all over that night, and the girls had giggled themselves
to bed, and the house was dark, Jeanette Barclay and her mother walked
up the stairs to her room together. There they sat down, and Jeanette
began--

"Neal said he told you about the ring?"

"Yes," answered her mother.

"But he did not show it to you--because he wanted me to be the first
to see it."

"Neal's a dear," replied her mother. "So that was why? I thought
perhaps he was bashful."

"No, mother," answered the girl, "no--we're both so proud of it." She
kept her hand over the ring finger, as she spoke, "You know those
'Short and Simple Annals' he's been doing for the _Star_--well, he
got his first check the day before Christmas, and he gave half of it
to his father, and took the other twenty-five dollars and bought this
ring. I think it is so pretty, and we are both real proud of it." And
then she took her hand from the ring, and held her finger out for her
mother's eyes, and her mother kissed it. They were silent a moment;
then the girl rose and stood with her hand on the doorknob and cried:
"I think it is the prettiest ring in all the world, and I never want
any other." Then she thought of mother, and flushed and ran away.

And we should not follow her. Rather let us climb Main Street and turn
into Lincoln Avenue and enter the room where Martin Culpepper sits
writing the Biography of Watts McHurdie. He is at work on his famous
chapter, "Hymen's Altar," and we may look over his great shoulder and
see what he has written: "The soul cag