Herman Andersen would be a much better companion for you. Jim
is strong and energetic, full of life, and will always be among the busy
bustling things, and deep in excitements. He would wear you out."

"And don't you see that when he is five or six and twenty he will need
something better than an invalid wife, who might have to go to bed with
a headache when he was giving an important dinner, or having a brilliant
sort of evening with some stylish guests? He ought to have a wife
something like Mrs. Hoffman, who would help him to the finest things of
life. And though I seem well, I shall never be real strong; and I do not
care for grand society. I like a good deal of quiet and ease, and just
everyday living, a little painting when I feel inspired, a little
reading and talks with friends, and old-fashioned music. I sometimes
feel as if I was an old girl, and ought to have lived a century ago.
Perhaps I shall make a queer, stuffy old woman. And--I ought not to
marry."

"You shall not give up the divine right," he made answer, earnestly.

"Oh, I have a pretty face just now, and people, I find, _do_ admire
beauty. But that will fade." Then she sprang up suddenly, parted her
long ringlets, and stood with her back to him. "See," and her voice
trembled, he knew there were tears in her eyes, "I have a little crook
in my back, and one high shoulder. There has to be half an inch of cork
in one boot-sole to keep me straight and from limping. No, I shouldn't
do for a handsome young man like Jim, for I may grow lamer and crookeder
as I grow older; nor for any man, although you try to comfort me with an
almost divine compassion."

She was sobbing in his arms then. It was not the first time she had wept
out her sorrow there.

He raised the golden head a little, and kissed down amid the passionate
tears that were sweeping away a kind of regret that sometimes haunted
her. He had kissed her often as a little child, but rarely since her
return from abroad. Her girlhood had been a quality fine and rare and
sacred to him.

"Except the one man who has always loved you from the poor little child
in her pitiful pain and anguish, and the little girl who began to take
courage and face the world, the larger girl who was brave and
sunny-hearted, and looked out with hopeful eyes on the world that had so
many blessings. And he knows now that no skill can ever shut out all
suffering; but his sympathy and tender affection will help her through