cer, Floyd?" she asked.

"For the girl to be rich, that she might make her husband rich? Some men
would like that."

"But what do you think?"

A boy of nineteen is not so glib in speaking of marriage as a girl of
fourteen, but I finally told her that I should not fancy the destiny of
marrying a rich girl: then my imagination warmed, and I let her hear
what my dream would be. She, the girl I loved, should be poor: very
likely life would have been cruel to her, and she would have known cold
and privation. What joy I should have in wrapping her in costly things,
in setting off her beauty with ornaments appropriate and rare! What a
light would shine in her eyes when I led her to the lovely house where
we two were to dwell in Fairyland! Every duty in life should be taken
from her: all she would have to do would be to grow more and more
beautiful. I myself would be chief servant to this dainty little
new-made queen, and not even the winds should be allowed to play too
freely with her hair.

Helen looked at me pensively, and Mr. Floyd, who was writing in the
corner, laughed a low amused laugh which reminded me for a moment of
Mephistopheles.

"So you would like that?" mused Helen. "Do you know, I should not like
it at all."

"Well, you will never be poor," I retorted, "and you will give your
golden key to some man who wants to marry a princess. But, to tell the
truth, Helen, I don't expect to marry anybody: I think it is great
nonsense. Both Harry and I have made up our minds to be bachelors."

CHAPTER X.

I had not seen Georgy Lenox for four years when, the spring we
graduated, she came to visit a cousin of her mother's in Boston, and we
were all invited to an Easter-party at Mrs. Dwight's, the cards being
brought to us by no less a person than Mr. Lenox himself. I was in my
own room writing when I heard Harry's sweet voice calling, and I went
out. Harry was, as usual, sitting on the table before his easel. It had
been one of his guardian's regulations that he should not touch paints
or canvas during his collegiate course, and until within the last few
months he had obeyed orders, and only lately had taken to water-colors
as a sort of negative course of action calculated to give him relaxation
after the monotony of his unnatural deprivation, without infringing upon
his uncle's injunctions. He was painting a girl in a flower-garden, and
over his shoulder was gazing a shabby, jaunty, decayed-looking person,
who was