to learn the possibilities of others and to discover whether they knew aught of adaptation. Therefore she resolved to act her natural self, to be recklessly merry and frivolous when so inclined, to devote whole days to solitude when the spirit. prompted, and not to be agreeable when it was an effort. Perhaps, had any very captivating individuals crossed her path, she would in feminine fashion have exerted herself to please them, and to practice in secret their favorite pursuits in life; just as one summer she had learned to sing because a certain interesting tenor had come her way. As it was, no such individuals came this time. Consequently, when dealing with Bob, the big brother of her dearest friend, she acted quite herself without considering whether it pleased him or not. Bob had made a very unobtrusive entrance into her life, appearing first as a useful means of conveying his sister home on dark nights. Later, when his family had removed to the beach, he fell into the habit of coming around evenings for a chat. Since he was only "Peg's brother," Dorothy decided that he was good for an experiment in Platonic friendship, and she proceeded to treat him as if he were one of her girl friends. She had always wanted a study in that line. Gradually she fell into the habit of looking for him every evening, on the ground that he was worth analyzing and did not have to be entertained. Sometimes, when she did not feel like talking, she would tell him so; and occasionally, preferring to be alone, she would send him home. Whenever they played tennis together, Dorothy always stopped the minute she felt inclined; if they went wheeling, Dorothy never attempted to climb any but the smallest hills, and dismounted whenever a stray urchin or a cluster of wild flowers caught her fancy. Through it all, Bob amiably adapted himself. "I wonder," she would often question, "if Bob is always so good and considerate because I am Peg's friend, or because I'm the only girl left near town, or because he really-?" Here she usually stopped. Toward the middle of the summer Bob had bought a canoe, and Saturday afternoons usually found him on the river with Dorothy, who always assisted at the paddle. Last year, she would have nestled cozily among the cushions with a dainty Japanese sunshade throwing rosy lights over her face and bair. That, however, she confessed, was not exactly Platonic, and she intended to act just as if he were Peg and not Peg's brother, or as if she were Bob's friend MacMasters and not a girl. Certainly MacMasters would not try to look pretty,-it wouldn't be natural. To-day, as she swang slowly in the hammock, she was reviewing the summer and trying to adjust her ideas of Bob and his probable ones of her. "It's just like my friendship for Peggy," she argued, "and yet somehow, it's more interesting. You take it for granted that you can be yourself and perfectly frank with a girl, but I never hoped to have such an ideal friendship with a man. It is ideal. Who would imagine that I could ever feel so well acquainted with Bob as to send for him when I want to go wheeling or to give him ribbons to match down town! That's it, I guess,-beside being a good friend he's more useful than a girl, and somehow you always feel so safe with any one so big. The best of it is that he never gets sentimental; it would just spoil it all if he did. What a lot one can find in a person when one acts perfectly natural! Now I should never have dreamed that a fellow like Bob cared about sunsets and books; but then, Peg does, and I suppose such things run in a family. I wonder if I should ever have discovered it if I had treated Bob as I did the professor?" She laughed softly to herself. "Wonder if Bob will take me up the river this afternoon? Why, there he comes now!” A big, broad-shouldered fellow jumped lightly off his wheel, smiling up at the piazza as he did so, and then, not waiting for breath, exclaimed, "The best news, Dorothy!" "That's good; what is it ?" "You remember that Dodsley fellow that used to hang around Peg so much last summer? Well, he's sent up word for Mac and me to come for a week's cruise down the coast. We're to start to-morrow morning at eight, and I'm going in town now to buy a suit of oilskins." Dorothy felt injured to think that he had planned it all before telling her; but then, she counter-argued, Peg would have done exactly the same thing,-it was the way all friends did. Still, it was rather a chill to hear that news when she had been dreaming of the river. For the first time she hid her real self from Bob. "I'm awfully glad," she exclaimed; "you will have such a grand time! Too bad, though, it isn't longer, for after you once get started you won't want to turn around. And won't you look jolly in oilskins?" He looked at her queerly a moment. "Doll"-he hesitated-" after I've been in town may I come around to say good-by?" She was on the point of saying that she was going out that evening when it occurred to her that it was not in accordance with her basis. She would not say that to Peg. "Surely," she answered, "and don't stay too long!" In the evening he dropped in and laid out more fully his plans for the trip. 66 "I suppose, of course, I sha'n't hear about it until you come back," Dorothy ventured. 66 "I suppose not," Bob answered, twirling his cap; you know how I hate to write letters. We'll talk it all over when I come back." "Yes," Dorothy replied, "if-if father does not take me to the mountains." Bob looked at her again; then they shook hands and he was gone. The week was a slow one for Dorothy. Once she caught herself rejoicing that at any rate Bob was spending his time in strictly masculine company. On reconsidering this thought, however, she banished it, since it was unnatural under the circumstances. She also gave up the idea of going to the mountains, asserting that she had decided to act her natural self, and adding, "Anyway, I hate the mountains." Thus it happened that at the end of the week Bob found her in the hammock attired in one of her dainty summer gowns. As he came up the steps she advanced to meet him in her frank manner. She was decidedly in the mood to be agreeable. Bob looked unusually handsome under his coat of tan, and his eyes shone with unconcealed pleasure at sight of Dorothy. "I say, Dorothy," he began, after they had discussed the trip, "let's go up the river and take supper with us. There won't be many more such days this year. "Then you must help put up the lunch," rejoined Dorothy; so the two repaired to the kitchen, where he cut bread and opened cans and she made dainty sandwiches and packed the box. She liked Bob in the kitchen, for he was extremely useful; and then, he never seemed to mind how homely she looked when it was warm and the apron borrowed from the cook was spotted and unbecoming. The sun was setting when they arrived, so they ate lunch first, remembering a former experience when, in the dark, Bob had carefully laid the bottle of olives outside the canoe. Afterward they paddled about in the long twilight, sometimes drifting, sometimes fishing for lilies, and once in a while singing together when they grew tired of talking. "It makes Bob realize that we are just friends," Dorothy was thinking, "if I don't try to entertain him. After all, it is by far the best way just to act one's self; then people get out of the habit of expecting things from you. Now the lieutenant expected me to be in love just because I put myself out to study military tactics and the Spanish War. Bob is so different and so reliable," she sighed. "I am getting to understand him pretty well. He's such a practical old comfort." "Let's draw up beside the bank," broke in Bob; "there are mosquitoes out here." "Won't there be more there?" queried the girl. "Oh no, they never go under beech-trees," he asserted, arriving there with two or three masterly strokes. "But they're thick here," protested Dorothy, after they had been there a few minutes. "My hands are bitten already." She would not have said that to any one but Bob, and it surprised her beyond words when he asked, "Won't you let me hold them ?"-adding hastily, "just to keep the mosquitoes off, you know." While Dorothy was questioning whether that was exactly in line with this kind of friendship, he had taken them both in his big brown ones. This was a new phase of Bob. Dorothy began to study his actions and her impressions under the circumstance. "Agreeable," she admitted; "I never realized what-what his hands were like before." "Dorothy, do you see that moon up there?" She nodded, although it was getting rather dark for the nod to be appreciated. "It was glorious last Wednesday night, and the water was as smooth as glass. The other fellows had gone ashore, but I stayed behind for a smoke and a good, long think." "Why,"-Dorothy spoke before she thought and therefore naturally, I was looking at the moon that night, too." "You were, Dorothy?" The eagerness of his tone made the girl start. Bob was getting different. Should she let him go on? Could he possibly get very different and run the risk of of spoiling it all? Then came her inevitable longing for a "new experience"; and, after all, was she not going to be perfectly natural and do what she liked? It was contrary to her inclinations last summer, when she had turned aside the athlete and, instead of hearing what he had to say, had asked to be taken in for the next waltz. "And do you know, Dorothy, it was you I was thinking of, and from that night on I could hardly wait to get back. I wanted to know if you missed me, I wanted to know if you any more than I could feel happy when we were apart, because-' His voice was low, and Dorothy was distinctly conscious that his words were producing a pleasant sensation somewhere near her heart. "-because, dear, I love you." Just what she said or did after that will never be related, for somehow, from that point on, she forgot to analyze. But then, that too was natural. FLORENCE EVELYN SMITH. IN HARMONY To live so close to Nature's soul, The soul that stirs the summer breeze, That fashions countless books from greenwood trees, That murmurs into every form of life An undertone of melody so strangely rife With harmonies before unknown of men, That human ears are startled, touched, enthralled, And strain to catch again Some echo of the wondrous, unwrit song; To be so much a part of all the power that sways the world, That lights the stars, and feels within itself The vast, compelling force of endless life, That each far-throbbing heart-beat of the greater life Finds some small echo in our humanness, Vibrating strangely from the power unrealized heretofore, |