ore," he
added.

"You have been to Maryville?" Miss Sherwin's voice showed surprise.
Then she began to ask questions about the people there, and to talk of
the delightful weather, in all of which her companion seemed to feel
little interest. Presently there came a silence.

The young man leaned forward, one elbow on his crossed knee that he
might the better look into Miss Sherwin's face, the light in the hall
being a little dim. "Lillian," he began, "in this past year I have had a
good deal of time for thinking, and naturally our--disagreement has been
often in my mind. When I last saw you I thought it was all over forever,
and though I had come to look at it differently in these months--feeling
that perhaps there had been a mistake--still I don't know that I
ever--that is-- I mean the possibility of undoing it never occurred to
me till I was on my way home. I hope you don't mind listening to this;
I'll try to be brief.

"Perhaps you know I got my position in March,--the one I had been hoping
and working for,--and with it the opportunity to come East for a month
or two. I can't say I wanted very much to come. The thought of our old
plans made it rather bitter, but I owed it to the people at home.

"Not to make the story too long, I picked up on the train a magazine
belonging to one of my fellow travellers, and read a little story. It
was called 'The Missing Bridge,' and was a sort of fairy story. It seems
rather absurd, but there was something in it that impressed me
strangely. It was the thought that even when people seem hopelessly
separated from each other, if they are brave enough and true enough to
try, they will find a way across all barriers.

"I may not be making this clear, for you have not read the story; but
you will understand me when I say it made me feel unwilling to have
anything I may have said or done in the past, stand between us now; I
was to blame for much of the quarrel, and I am sorry for it all. I know
how clever you are,--they were all talking about it in Maryville,--and
it may seem only a foolish dream to you now, but I want to tell you--"
he paused with his eyes on the floor, as if afraid to read his answer in
the face beside him.

It was very still in the hall, and, when he looked up after a moment,
Lillian had bowed her head in her hands.

"I don't want to pain you," he began.

"O Aleck!" she cried, putting out one hand, "it was _my_ story!"

At this point Peterkin, seeing matters