d you're not in a spiritual
mood at all," he said. "You've snubbed me two or three times to-night,
when I've tried to be sentimental. What's amiss with you?" and he bent
his eyes, full of a saucy sort of triumph, upon mine.

"I don't like parting with friends; it sets me all awry," I said, giving
back his own self-assured look. I was sorry to have him go; but if he
thought I was going to cry or blush, he was mistaken.

"You'll write to me, Miss Rachel?" he asked.

"No, Mr. Ames,--not at all," I said.

"Not write? Why not?" he asked, in astonishment.

"Because I don't believe in galvanizing dead friendships," I answered.

"Dead friendships, Miss Rachel? I hope ours has much life in it yet," he
said.

"It's in the last agony, Sir. It will be comfortably dead and buried
before long, with a neat little epitaph over it,--which is much the best
way to dispose of them finally, I think."

"You're harder than I thought you were," he said. "Is that the way you
feel towards all your friends?"

"I love my friends as well as any one," I answered. "But I never hold
them when they wish to be gone. My life-yarn spins against some other
yarn, catches the fibres, and twists into the very heart"----

"So far?" he asked, turning his eyes down to mine.

"Yes," I said, coolly,--"for the time being. You don't play at your
friendships, do you? If so, I pity you. As I was saying, they're like
one thread. By-and-by one spindle is moved, the strands spin away from
each other, and become strange yarn. What's the use of sending little
locks of wool across to keep them acquainted? They're two yarns from
henceforth. Reach out for some other thread,--there's plenty near,--and
spin into that. We're made all up of little locks from other people, Mr.
Ames. Won't it be strange, in that great Hereafter, to hunt up our own
fibres, and return other people's? It would take about forty-five
degrees of an eternity to do that."

"I shall never return mine," he said. "I couldn't take myself to pieces
in such a style. But won't you write at all?"

"To what purpose? You'll be glad of one letter,--possibly of two. Then
it will be, 'Confound it! here's a missive from that old maid! What a
bore! Now I suppose I must air my wits in her behalf; but, if you ever
catch me again,'----_Exit_."

"And you?" he asked, laughing.

"I shall be as weary as you, and find it as difficult to keep warmth in
the poor dying body. No, Mr. Ames. Let the poor thing die a