whistling and thinking that his
brother certainly had a share of all of earth's good things position, a
good name, money, and now this sweet woman for a wife. Well, the world
was all before _him_ where to choose, and he would have money and a
position some day and the very happiest home in the land.

The next time he saw Prudence she looked like one just risen out of a
grave: pallid, with purple, speechless lips, and eyes whose anguish rent
his soul. Her father had been suddenly prostrated with hemorrhage and he
stayed through the night with her, and afterward he made arrangements for
the funeral, and his mother and himself stood at the grave with her. And
then there was a prison, and after that a delirious fever for himself,
when for days he had not known his mother's face or Prudence's voice.

The other boys had gone back to college, but his spirit was crushed, he
could not hold up his head among men. He had lost his "ambition," people
said. Since that time he had taught in country schools and written
articles for the papers and magazines; he had done one thing beside, he
had purchased books and studied them. In the desk in his chamber there
were laid away to-day four returned manuscripts, he was only waiting
for leisure to exchange their addressee and send them forth into the
world again to seek their fortunes. A rejection daunted him no more than
a poor recitation in the schoolroom; where would be the zest in life if
one had not the chance of trying again?

John Holmes was a hermit, but he was a hermit who loved boys; girls were
too much like delicate bits of china, he was afraid of handling for fear
of breaking. Girls grown up were not quite so much like bits of china,
but he had no friend save one among womankind, his sister that was to
have been, Prudence Pomeroy. He had not addressed her with the name his
brother had given her since that last day in the garden; she was gravely
Prudence to him, in her plain attire, her smooth hair and little
unworldly ways, almost a veritable Puritan maiden.

As to her marrying--again (he always thought "again"), he had no more
thought of it than she had. He had given to her every letter he had
received from his brother, but they always avoided speaking his name;
indeed Prudence, in her young reverence for his age and wisdom, had
seldom named his Christian name to others or to himself, he was "Mr.
Holmes" to her.

John Holmes was her junior by three years, yet he had constitu