ly
fill the bowl, and strike the match for him; then he took it from her
hand and breathed softly through the curved stem until the fire circled
brightly round, and the tobacco all was burning. He leaned back on his
elbow and sent the smoke out in long quiet wreaths, and Pocahontas,
with her hands folded together in her lap, watched it rise and vanish
dreamily.

"I wonder," she murmured presently, "if the nights out there--in
Mexico, I mean--can be more beautiful than this. I have read
descriptions, and dreamed dreams, but I can't imagine any thing more
perfect than that stretch of water shimmering in the moonlight, and the
dark outline of the trees yonder against the sky."

"It's more than beautiful; it's _home_." Jim's voice shook a little.
"Do you know, Princess, that whenever the memory of home comes to me
out yonder in the tropics, it will be just this picture, I shall always
see. The river, the lights and shadows on the lawn, the old gray
house, and _you_, with the flowers on your breast, and the moonlight on
your dear face. Don't be afraid, or move away; I'm not going to make
love to you--all that is over; but your face must always be to me the
fairest and sweetest on earth." He paused a moment, and then added,
looking steadily away from her; "I want to tell you--this last time I
may ever have an opportunity of speaking to you alone--that you are
never to blame yourself for what has come and gone. It's been no fault
of yours. You could no more help my loving you than I could help it
myself; or than you could make yourself love me in return."

"Oh, Jim, dear!" spoke the girl, quickly and penitently, "I do love
you. I do, indeed."

"I know it, Princess, in exactly the same way you love Roy Garnett, and
immeasurably less than you love Berkeley. That isn't what I wanted,
dear. I'm a dull fellow, slow at understanding things, and I can't put
my thoughts into graceful, fluent language; but I know what love is,
and what I wanted you to feel is very different. Don't be unhappy
about it--or me. I'll worry through the pain in time, or grow
accustomed to it. It's tough, just at first, but I'll pull through
somehow. It shall not spoil my life either, although it must mar it; a
man must be a pitiful fellow, who lets himself go to the bad because
the woman he loves won't have him. God means every man to hold up his
own weight in this world. I'd as soon knock a woman down as throw the
blame of a wasted lif