ped my father would have been able to
take it back from him next year, but now----"

"But you say they think in time that the property will----"

"They think so. I don't. But it would be a pity to undeceive them. I am
afraid, Barbara," with a sad look at her, "you made a bad match. Even
when the chance comes in your way to rise out of poverty, it proves a
thoroughly useless one."

"It isn't like you to talk like that," says she quickly. "There, you are
overwrought, and no wonder, too. Come upstairs and let us see what you
will want for your journey." Her tone had grown purposely brisk; surely,
on an occasion such as this she is a wife, a companion in a thousand.
"There must be many things to be considered, both for you and for me.
And the thing is, to take nothing unnecessary. Those foreign places, I
hear, are so----"

"It hardly matters what I take," says he wearily.

"Well, it matters what I take," says she briskly. "Come and give me a
help, Freddy. You know how I hate to have servants standing over me.
Other people stand over their servants, but they are poor rich people. I
like to see how the clothes are packed." She is speaking not quite
truthfully. Few people like to be spared trouble so much as she does,
but it seems good in her eyes now to rouse him from the melancholy that
is fast growing on him. "Come," she says, tucking her arm into his.

CHAPTER XLI.

"It is not to-morrow; ah, were it to-day!
There are two that I know that would be gay.
Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!
Ah I parting wounds so bitterly!"

It is six weeks later, "spring has come up this way," and all the earth
is glad with a fresh birth.

"Tantarara! the joyous Book of Spring
Lies open, writ in blossoms; not a bird
Of evil augury is seen or heard!
Come now, like Pan's old crew we'll dance and sing,
Or Oberon's, for hill and valley ring
To March's bugle horn--earth's blood is stirred."

March has indeed come; boisterous, wild, terrible, in many ways, but
lovely in others. There is a freshness in the air that rouses glad
thoughts within the breast, vague thoughts, sweet, as undefinable, and
that yet mean life. The whole land seems to have sprung up from a long
slumber, and to be looking with wide happy eyes upon the fresh marvels
Nature is preparing for it. Rather naked she stands as yet, rubbing her
sleepy lids, having just cast from her her coat of snow, and feeling
somewhat bare in