advanced and allowance retreated. Stell was still Babe, the
family beauty; but even she knew that the time was past for curls.
Emily's hair, somehow, lost its glint and began to look just plain
brown. Her crinkliness began to iron out.

"Now, look here!" Jo argued, desperately, one night. "We could be happy,
anyway. There's plenty of room at the house. Lots of people begin that
way. Of course, I couldn't give you all I'd like to, at first. But
maybe, after a while--"

No dreams of salons, and brocade, and velvet-footed servitors, and satin
damask now. Just two rooms, all their own, all alone, and Emily to work
for. That was his dream. But it seemed less possible than that other
absurd one had been.

You know that Emily was as practical a little thing as she looked
fluffy. She knew women. Especially did she know Eva, and Carrie, and
Babe. She tried to imagine herself taking the household affairs and the
housekeeping pocketbook out of Eva's expert hands. Eva had once
displayed to her a sheaf of aigrettes she had bought with what she saved
out of the housekeeping money. So then she tried to picture herself
allowing the reins of Jo's house to remain in Eva's hands. And
everything feminine and normal in her rebelled. Emily knew she'd want to
put away her own freshly laundered linen, and smooth it, and pat it. She
was that kind of woman. She knew she'd want to do her own delightful
haggling with butcher and vegetable pedlar. She knew she'd want to muss
Jo's hair, and sit on his knee, and even quarrel with him, if necessary,
without the awareness of three ever-present pairs of maiden eyes and
ears.

"No! No! We'd only be miserable. I know. Even if they didn't object. And
they would, Jo. Wouldn't they?"

His silence was miserable assent. Then, "But you do love me, don't you,
Emily?"

"I do, Jo. I love you--and love you--and love you. But, Jo, I--can't."

"I know it, dear. I knew it all the time, really. I just thought, maybe,
somehow--"

The two sat staring for a moment into space, their hands clasped. Then
they both shut their eyes, with a little shudder, as though what they
saw was terrible to look upon. Emily's hand, the tiny hand that was so
unexpectedly firm, tightened its hold on his, and his crushed the absurd
fingers until she winced with pain.

That was the beginning of the end, and they knew it.

Emily wasn't the kind of girl who would be left to pine. There are too
many Jo's in the world whose hearts ar