. That one must have been
almost as hard to write as cutting off a hand."

"He writes to me every day," said Cynthia, "and I write to him; but I
haven't seen him for a year and I don't feel as if I could stand it much
longer. When he gets well we're going to be married. And if he doesn't
get well pretty soon we're going to be married anyway."

"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed G. G.'s mother. "You know that wouldn't be
right!"

"I don't know," said Cynthia; "and if anybody thinks I'm going to be
tricked out of the man I love by a lot of silly little germs they are
very much mistaken!"

"But, my dear," said G. G.'s mother, "G. G. can't support a wife--not
for a long time anyway. We have nothing to give him. And, of course, he
can't work now--and perhaps can't for years."

"I, too," said Cynthia--with proper pride--"have parents. Mine are
rolling in money. Whenever I ask them for anything they always give it
to me without question."

"You have never asked them," said G. G.'s mother, "for a sick, penniless
boy."

"But I shall," said Cynthia, "the moment G. G.'s well--and maybe
sooner."

There was a little silence.

Then G. G.'s mother leaned forward and took both of Cynthia's hands in
hers.

"I don't wonder at him," she said--"I don't. I was ever so jealous of
you, but I'm not any more. I think you're the _dearest_ girl!"

"Oh!" cried Cynthia. "I am so glad! But will G. G.'s father like me
too?"

"He has never yet failed," said G. G.'s mother, "to like with his whole
heart anything that was stainless and beautiful."

"Is he like G. G.?"

"He has the same beautiful round head, but he has a rugged look that G.
G. will never have. He has a lion look. He might have been a terrible
tyrant if he hadn't happened, instead, to be a saint."

And she showed Cynthia, side by side, pictures of the father and the
boy.

"They have such valiant eyes!" said Cynthia.

"There is nothing base in my young men," said G. G.'s mother.

Then the two women got right down to business and began an interminable
conversation of praise. And sometimes G. G.'s mother's eyes cried a
little while the rest of her face smiled and she prattled like a brook.
And the meeting ended with a great hug, in which G. G.'s mother's tiny
feet almost parted company with the floor.

And it was arranged that they two should fly up to Saranac and be with
G. G. for a day.

IV

It wasn't from shame that G. G. signed another name than his own to the
stor