the inner and outer conditions essential thereunto;
and when two strange ladies came in and promptly went out again John
glanced at the mantel-clock, exclaimed his surprise at the hour, and
gathering up the manuscript, rose to say his parting word.

"Good-by." His hand-grasp was fervent.

"Good-by," replied the maiden.

"Miss Barb"--he kept her hand--"I want a word, and, honestly--I--don't
know what it is! Doesn't good-by seem to you mighty weak, by itself?"

"Why, that depends. It's got plenty of po-ten-ti-al-i-ty if you give it
its old sig-nif-i-ca-tion."

"Well, I do--every bit of it! Do you, Miss Barb--to me?"

She gave such answer with her steady eyes that her questioner's mind
would have lost its balance had she not smiled so lightly.

"Still," he responded, "good-by is such unclaimed property that I want
another word to sort o' fence it in, you know."

The maiden only looked more amused than before.

"I don't want it to mean too much, you understand," explained he. The
hand in his grew heavier, but his grasp tightened on it. "Yet don't you
think these last three days' companionship deserves a word of its own?
Miss Barb, you've been--and in my memory you will be henceforth--a
crystalline delight! The word's not mine, it's from one of my mother's
sweetest things. Can't I say good-by, thou 'crystalline delight'?"

"Why, Mr. March," said Barbara, softly pulling at her hand. "I don't
particularly like the implication that I'm per-fect-ly trans-par-ent."

"Now, Miss Barb! as if I--oh pshaw! Good-by." He lifted her hand. She
made it very light. He held it well up, looking down on it fondly.
"This," he said, "is the little friend that wanted to help me out of
trouble. Good-by, little friend; I"--his lips approached it--"I love
you."

It flashed from his hand like a bird from the nest. "No-o!" moaned its
owner.

"Oh, Miss Gar--Miss Barb!" groaned John, "you've utterly misunderstood."

"No"--Barbara had not yet blushed, but now she crimsoned--"I've not
misunderstood you. I simply don't like that way of saying----"

"I didn't mean----"

"I know it, Mr. March. I know perfectly well you don't expect ever to
mean anything to anybody any more; you consider it a sheer
im-pos-si-bil-i-ty. That's the keystone of our friendship."

John hemmed. "I wouldn't say impossibility; I'd say impracticability.
It's an impracticability, Miss Barb, that's all. Why, every time I think
of my dear sweet little mother----"

"O