nnot offer in love, yet
which is good only when given; worthless to one, priceless to two.
Sometimes I think it's finer than love, for it makes no demands, no
promises, no compacts, no professions----"

"Did you ever have such a friendship?"

"No, indeed! If I had--oh pshaw! I never was or shall be fit for it. But
I just tell you, Miss Garnet, that in such a case as we've spoken of,
the need of such a heart for such a friendship can't be reckoned!"

He smiled sturdily, and she smiled also, but let compassion speak in her
eyes before she reverently withdrew them. He, too, was still.

They were approaching a large river. The porter, growing fond of them,
came, saying:

"Here where we crosses into Yankeedom. Fine view fum de rear
platfawm--sun jes' a-sett'n'."

They went there--the Fairs preferred to sit still--and with the eddies
of an almost wintry air ruffling them and John's arm lying along the
rail under the window behind them, so as to clasp her instantly if she
should lurch, they watched the slender bridge lengthen away and the cold
river widen under it between them and Dixie.

Their silence confessed their common emotion. John felt a condescending
expansion and did not withdraw his arm even after the bridge was passed
until he thought Miss Garnet was about to glance around at it, which she
had no idea of doing.

"I declare, Miss Garnet, I--I wish----"

She turned her eyes to his handsome face lifted with venturesome
diffidence and frowning against the blustering wind.

"I'm afraid "--he gayly shook his head--"you won't like what I say if
you don't take it just as I mean it." He put his hand over the iron-work
again, but she was still looking into his face, and he thought she
didn't know it.

"It wouldn't be fair to take it as you don't mean it," she said. "What
is it?"

"Why, ha-ha--I--I wish I were your brother!--ha-ha! Seriously, I don't
believe you can imagine how much a lone fellow--boy or man--can long and
pine for a sister. If I'd had a sister, a younger sister--no boy ever
pined for an older sister--I believe I'd have made a better man. When I
was a small boy----"

Barbara glanced at his breadth and stature with a slow smile.

He laughed. "O, that was away back yonder before you can remember."

"It certainly must have been," she replied, "and yet----"

"And yet--" he echoed, enjoying his largeness.

"I thought all the pre-his-tor-ic things were big. But what was it you
used to do? I kno