"When you are gone to sea, Jo," he said to Joshua in the course of a conversation in which, in the fulness of his joy at Minnie's kindness, he had unbosomed himself to his friend, "I shall speak to her, and tell her I love her." He spoke very slowly, and his eyes were toward the ground; it was so sacred a subject with him, that his voice trembled when he spoke of it. "Once on a time, before I knew her, Jo, you, and you alone, filled my heart; but I had no idea then of a man's passions and a man's fears. I think I should have disbelieved any person then who told me that you would have a rival in my heart. But you have, Jo; although you are not less loved for all that." "I understand you, Dan, and am content. I am proud of your love. If I were to lose it, the sweetness would go out of life." "So it would be with me, Jo; but you can never lose it--never, never. I think you and I know what love is. In the midst of all our trouble when you first went away--trouble that came upon us so suddenly that I began to be frightened of it--I found consolation in thinking of our love for each other. Misfortunes came. Never mind, I thought; Joshua loves me. Mother died, father died; we were left penniless; and I thought of you and was comforted. You had grown so in my heart--like the roots of a tree, Jo--that if I had ceased to love you, my heart would have ceased to beat. It is the same now; but Minnie is in my heart side by side with you. I shall tell her, you know, by and by. By and by," he repeated softly. "The thought of it is like heaven to me; for I have begun to hope." It was on that same afternoon that Ellen was sitting in her bedroom looking at her face in the looking-glass. She was fair; and she knew it, and was proud of it. But it was not vanity that caused her to sit, with her chin upon her hands, looking into the glass. Of a very modest type a womanhood was Ellen; not a heroine of the Joan-of-Arc order, who, with all her false glitter about her, would have been a woman after very few men's hearts. Ellen was of the quiet order of women, of whom there are thousands growing up in happy English homes, thank Heaven! and who are blessed and contented and happy, notwithstanding their sisters' unwomanly cries about woman's rights. May English women like Ellen, modest and constant and loving, increase and multiply with every succeeding year! Ellen was thinking of herself a little, as she looked into the glass, and of Joshua a great deal. He had not spoken to her yet; but he would soon, she knew. And as she sat and saw her pretty face looking at her, whose step but Joshua's should she hear coming, up the stairs? He went into the adjoining room--Dan's room; and she heard him moving about, and--yes; singing! Singing what? Why, "Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses." The heroine's name in the song is Kate; but Joshua sang,--