of mind, was, in truth, hard. It was lowest pauperism to her panting
spirit--panting to achieve not little things but great. Humble strife
in a little world, amid work-a-day environment, and among everyday
people, had no charms for Mell. Such living was, in a word,
unbearable.

And over there across that beauteous valley, in the enchanted halls of
the unattainable, life was a delightful series of interesting events,
redolent of delicate sentiments and sweet-smelling savors, spiced with
novelty, brimful of pleasure, amusing, absorbing, far-reaching,
all-embracing; in brief, a ceaseless symposium, purged of every ugly,
common or narrow element, as roseate and as captivating to the fancy,
as hand-painted satin framed in mosaic.

A boy walked up the garden path. The young lady seated on the porch,
saw him coming, and a feeling of exultation shot through all the blood
in her veins. The boy held a note in his hand, and Mell jumped into
the contents of that note, intellectually, in less than the millionth
part of a second. He could not stand it any longer; he was writing to
know if he might call, and when. She had a great mind to let him come
this very evening, though he did not deserve it; but then, do men ever
deserve just what they get, good and bad, at women's hands?

"A note, ma'am," said the boy. Mell took it in silence, opened it
tremulously, and read:

"Suke is unhappy. Me too. Don't disappoint us to-morrow, and send me a
bit of a line, sweet lassie, to say that you will not. J. P. D."

"The scribblings of a school-boy," muttered Mell, inconceivably
dashed.

"No answer," she told the boy. When the messenger was beyond reach of
recall, she was sorry she had not replied to the note, or sent word,
yes; for, perhaps, it would be better to see him once more, have a
plain talk, and come to some understanding. The more she dwelt upon
the matter, the more certain she became that this was her best course;
so upon the morrow, the half-past five o'clock breakfast was hardly
well over, when, with alternate hope and fear measuring swords within
her, she fled to the lot for Suke. With one arm thrown affectionately
around the Jersey's neck, the two proceeded most amicably to the
meadow. There she waited an hour nearly, before Jerome came; but he
did come, eventually, wearing the loveliest of shooting-jackets, with
an English primrose in his buttonhole, radiantly handsome, deliciously
cool, and as much at his leisure as if it