ether.

G. G. was different from other boys. To begin with, he had been born at
sea. Then he had lived abroad and learned the greatest quantity of
foreign languages and songs. Then he had tried a New England
boarding-school and had been hurt playing games he was too frail to
play. And doctors had stethoscoped him and shaken their heads over him.
And after that there was much naming of names which, instead of
frightening him, were magic to his ear--Arizona, California,
Saranac--but, because G. G.'s father was a professional man and
perfectly square and honest, there wasn't enough money to send G. G. far
from New York and keep him there and visit him every now and then. So
Saranac was the place chosen for him to get well in; and it seemed a
little hard, because there was almost as much love of sunshine and
warmth and flowers and music in G. G. as there was patience and courage.

The day they went skeeing together--which was the day after they had
skated together--he told Cynthia all about himself, very simply and
naturally, as a gentleman farmer should say: "This is the dairy; this is
the blacksmith shop; this is the chicken run." And the next day, very
early, when they stood knee-deep in snow, armed with shot-guns and
waiting for some dogs that thought they were hounds to drive rabbits for
them to shoot at, he told her that nothing mattered so long as you were
happy and knew that you were happy, because when these two stars came
into conjunction you were bound to get well.

A rabbit passed. And G. G. laid his mitten upon his lips and shook his
head; and he whispered:

"I wouldn't shoot one for anything in the world."

And she said: "Neither would I."

Then she said: "If you don't shoot why did you come?"

"Oh, Miss Snowbird," he said, "don't I look why I came? Do I have to say
it?"

He looked and she looked. And their feet were getting colder every
moment and their hearts warmer. Then G. G. laughed aloud--bright, sudden
music in the forest. Snow, balanced to the fineness of a hair, fell
from the bowed limbs of trees. Then there was such stillness as may be
in Paradise when souls go up to the throne to be forgiven. Then, far
off, one dog that thought he was a hound began to yap and thought he was
belling; but still G. G. looked into the snowbird's eyes and she into
his, deeper and deeper, until neither had any secret of soul from the
other. So, upon an altar cloth, two wax candles burn side by side, with
clear,