r stout, I fear, and with the Greek and Latin sadly
weather-worn?"

"You don't mean anything except nonsense, Mary?" said Fred, coloring
slightly nevertheless.

"That is what my father has just told me of as what may happen, and he
never talks nonsense," said Mary, looking up at Fred now, while he
grasped her hand as they walked, till it rather hurt her; but she would
not complain.

"Oh, I could be a tremendously good fellow then, Mary, and we could be
married directly."

"Not so fast, sir; how do you know that I would not rather defer our
marriage for some years? That would leave you time to misbehave, and
then if I liked some one else better, I should have an excuse for
jilting you."

"Pray don't joke, Mary," said Fred, with strong feeling. "Tell me
seriously that all this is true, and that you are happy because of
it--because you love me best."

"It is all true, Fred, and I am happy because of it--because I love you
best," said Mary, in a tone of obedient recitation.

They lingered on the door-step under the steep-roofed porch, and Fred
almost in a whisper said--

"When we were first engaged, with the umbrella-ring, Mary, you used
to--"

The spirit of joy began to laugh more decidedly in Mary's eyes, but the
fatal Ben came running to the door with Brownie yapping behind him,
and, bouncing against them, said--

"Fred and Mary! are you ever coming in?--or may I eat your cake?"

FINALE.

Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending. Who can quit young
lives after being long in company with them, and not desire to know
what befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life,
however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises may not be
kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers
may find their long-waited opportunity; a past error may urge a grand
retrieval.

Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a
great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in
Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of
the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic--the
gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which
makes the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet
memories in common.

Some set out, like Crusaders of old, with a glorious equipment of hope
and enthusiasm and get broken by the way, wanting patience with each
other and the world.

Al