lling to let you."

"Oh, she is, and father is, too. I know I don't deserve such good times,
but I do want to go. I love Miss Prudence as much as I do mother, I
believe, and I am only forty miles from home. Mr. Holmes is about
leaving, too. How father will miss _him_! And Morris gone! Mother sighs
over the changes and then says changes must needs come if boys and girls
will grow up."

"Where is Mr. Holmes going?"

"To California. The doctor says he must go somewhere to cure his cough.
And he says he will rest and write another book. Have you read his book?"

"No, it is too dry for me."

"We don't think it is dry; Morris and I know it by heart."

"That is because you know the author."

"Perhaps it is. The book is everything but a story book. Miss Prudence
has a copy in Turkey morocco. Do you see many people that write books?"

"No," he said, smiling at her simplicity. "New York isn't full of them."

"Miss Prudence sees them," replied Marjorie with dignity.

"She is a bird of their feather. I do not fly, I walk on the ground--with
my eyes on it, perhaps."

"Like the man with the muck rake," said Marjorie, quoting from her old
love, _Pilgrims Progress_, "don't you know there was a crown held above
his head, and his eyes were on the ground and he could not see it."

"No, I do not know it, but I perceive that you are talking an allegory at
me."

"Not at you, _to_ you," she corrected.

"You write very short letters to me, nowadays."

"Your letters are not suggestive enough," she said, archly.

"Like my conversation. As poor a talker as I am, I am a better talker
than writer. And you--you write a dozen times better than you talk."

"I'm sorry I'm so unentertaining to-night. When Linnet writes she says:
"'I wish I could _talk_ to you,' and when I talk I think: 'I wish I could
write it all to you.'"

"As some one said of some one who could write better than he talked, 'He
has plenty of bank notes, but he carries no small change, in his
pocket.'"

"It is so apt to be too small," she answered, somewhat severely.

"I see you are above talking the nonsense that some girls talk. What do
you do to get rested from your thoughts?"

How Marjorie laughed!

"Hollis, do talk to me instead of writing. And I'll write to you instead
of talking."

"That is, you wish me near to you and yourself far away from me. That is
the only way that we can satisfy each other. Isn't that Miss Prudence
coming?"

"And the master.