t you
should cry than that you should think me cold or unmindful of your
sorrow. Do you know one of the sacred memories of my life? It is
that, on that blessed night when your mother asked me to come and live
under her roof, she said she should be glad to feel that in any sudden
emergency you and she would, have a near friend to lean upon. There
was a 'royal accolade,' if you like! I felt in an instant as if she
had bestowed the order of knighthood upon me, and as if I must live
more worthily in order to deserve her trust. How true it is, Polly,
that those who believe in us educate us!

"Do you remember (don't cry, dear!) that night by the fireside,--the
night when we brought her out of her bedroom after three days of
illness,--when we sat on either side of her, each holding a hand while
she told us the pretty romance of her meeting and loving your father?
I slipped the loose wedding ring up and down her finger, and stole a
look at her now and then. She was like a girl when she told that
story, and I could not help thinking it was worth while to be a tender,
honorable, faithful man, to bring that look into a woman's face after
eighteen years. Well, I adored her, that is all I can say; and I can't
_say_ even that, I have to write it. Don't rob me, Polly, of the right
she gave me, that of being a 'near friend to lean upon.' I am only
afraid, because you, more than any one else, know certain weaknesses
and follies of mine, and, indeed, pulled me out of the pit and held me
up till I got a new footing. I am afraid you will never have the same
respect for me, nor believe that a fellow so weak as I was could be
strong enough to lean upon. Try me once, Polly, just to humor me,
won't you? Give me something to do,--something _hard_! Lean just a
little, Polly, and see how stiff I 'll be,--no, bother it, I won't be
stiff, I'll be firm! To tell the truth, I can never imagine you as
'leaning;' though they say you are pale and sad, and out of sorts with
life. You remind me of one of the gay scarlet runners that climb up
the slender poles in the garden below my window. The pole holds up the
vine at first, of course, but the vine keeps the pole straight; not in
any ugly and commonplace fashion, but by winding round, and round about
it, and hanging its blossoms in and out and here and there, till the
poor, serviceable pole is forgotten in the beauty that makes use of it.

"Good-by, little scarlet runner! You will bloom