My wife agrees with me that the little love affair of his with Marie McCorcle had not much if any effect on our friend. Failing a little in love with her when he was some twenty-six years old, for a remark she made in a speech when May Queen, he proposed in a note—was rejected in a note. Mounting his horse, he took a ride of some eleven days on business somewhere. On his return he was over with it, except of course the feeling of pique. The first day of his ride he chanted, as he told me, the words of her rejection to “Old Hundred,” all day long, over and over and over. The next day it was to a faster tune. He trotted his horse rapidly back, making his hoofs keep time to the swiftest jig of his recollection, as he rode into town with the words of her rejection still on his lips. The rest of my task is a pleasant one. I like to think about Annie Rennaugh—I love even to write her name. She was a cousin of Dora’s and resided in the same town. I cannot say that she was pretty—but I can say that she was beautiful. Just in this way. She was of a small, modest, quiet appearance. You would hardly look at her twice if you saw her in a promiscuous company. Only become acquainted with her, however, and an irresistible charm is upon you. There is such a delicious ease in all she says and does—such a deep mirth and artless confidence in her that conquers without observation. She was a special friend of Charley’s. He confided to her from the very first all his affair with Dora. I saw him one evening at a party with her. She was seated in a chair by the door, with a saucer of strawberries and cream in her lap. He was seated at her feet in the doorway—enjoying the summer air—conversing in a low, earnest tone with her as they took alternate teaspoonsful of the fruit. They were talking about Dora—Charley’s _ideal_ Dora—as earnestly as if they were talking love on their own account. Well, the full moon of Dora’s influence waxed into the full orb of its influence upon her lover, and then waned, and waned. His friendship, however, for Annie increased slowly—slowly, but most surely. When he was whirled away for those four weeks by Marie McCorcle, he told her all about it, and had, as usual, all her sympathy. Then he was off for college and corresponded with her regularly. I was with him in college. Many a time has he torn up—at my advice—the long letter he had written her, because it was entirely too warm, even though it was directed in the most _fraternal_ manner possible to “My dear Sister Annie,” and signed, “Your affectionate brother, Charles.”