nes, Rip, were written by a man who was once a
friend of my father's. I intend to find him and make them friends again.
You don't care for poetry. It's no use your trying to swallow it, Rip!"

"It sounds very nice," said Ripton, modestly shutting his mouth.

"The Alps! Italy! Rome! and then I shall go to the East," the hero
continued. "She's ready to go anywhere with me, the dear brave heart!
Oh, the glorious golden East! I dream of the desert. I dream I'm chief
of an Arab tribe, and we fly all white in the moonlight on our mares,
and hurry to the rescue of my darling! And we push the spears, and we
scatter them, and I come to the tent where she crouches, and catch her
to my saddle, and away!--Rip! what a life!"

Ripton strove to imagine he could enjoy it.

"And then we shall come home, and I shall lead Austin's life, with her
to help me. First be virtuous, Rip! and then serve your country heart
and soul. A wise man told me that. I think I shall do something."

Sunshine and cloud, cloud and sunshine, passed over the lover. Now
life was a narrow ring; now the distances extended, were winged, flew
illimitably. An hour ago and food was hateful. Now he manfully refreshed
his nature, and joined in Algernon's encomiums on Miss Letitia Thompson.

Meantime Beauty slept, watched by the veteran volunteer of the hero's
band. Lucy awoke from dreams which seemed reality, to the reality which
was a dream. She awoke calling for some friend, "Margaret!" and heard
one say, "My name is Bessy Berry, my love! not Margaret." Then she asked
piteously where she was, and where was Margaret, her dear friend, and
Mrs. Berry whispered, "Sure you've got a dearer!"

"Ah!" sighed Lucy, sinking on her pillow, overwhelmed by the strangeness
of her state.

Mrs. Berry closed the frill of her nightgown and adjusted the bedclothes
quietly.

Her name was breathed.

"Yes, my love?" she said.

"Is he here?"

"He's gone, my dear."

"Gone?--Oh, where?" The young girl started up in disorder.

"Gone, to be back, my love! Ah! that young gentleman!" Mrs. Berry
chanted: "Not a morsel have he eat; not a drop have he drunk!"

"O Mrs. Berry! why did you not make him?" Lucy wept for the
famine-struck hero, who was just then feeding mightily.

Mrs. Berry explained that to make one eat who thought the darling of his
heart like to die, was a sheer impossibility for the cleverest of women;
and on this deep truth Lucy reflected, with her eyes wide at the