Mrs. Mason sighed regretfully. "I wish it could have been," she said; "Jim is such a good fellow, and was always gentle and careful with the little girls, even when he grew a great rough lad; such a little chevalier in his feelings, too. I remember one Christmas just after the war, when he was about fourteen, the children wanted some Christmas green to decorate the parlor. It was the fall you were in the South, and they wanted to make the room pretty to welcome you home again. Susie, Nina and my two girls, went over into the Shirley woods to get it, and Jim went with them. They found plenty of lovely holly, but no mistletoe for a long time; you know how scarce it is around here. At last Pocahontas 'spied a splendid bunch, full of pure, waxen berries, way up in the top of a tall oak tree, and she set her heart at once on having it. There had been heavy sleet the night before, and every limb was caked with ice--slippery as glass. Climbing was doubly dangerous, and Grace begged him not to try, but that foolish Pocahontas looked disappointed, and Jim dashed right at the tree. It was a terribly foolhardy thing to do, and Grace said it made her sick to watch him; every minute she expected to see him slip and come crashing to the ground. The little girls all cried, and Grace boxed Jim's ears the instant he was safe on the ground again with the mistletoe. The children came home in great excitement, Pocahontas with the mistletoe hugged tight in her arms and tears pouring down her cheeks. When I scolded Jim for his recklessness, he opened those honest hazel eyes of his at me in surprise and said, 'But Princess wanted it,' as if that were quite sufficient reason for risking his life. Poor little Princess." After a moment she resumed: "I wish she could have loved him in the way we wish. Marriage is a terrible risk for a girl like her. She is too straightforward, too uncompromisingly intolerant of every-day littleness, to have a very peaceful life. She has grown up so different from other girls; so full of ideals and romance; she belongs, in thought and motives, to the last century rather than to this, if what I hear be true. She is large-hearted and has a great capacity for affection, but she is self-willed and she could be hard upon occasion. If she should fall into weak or wicked hands she would both endure and inflict untold suffering. And there is within her, too, endless power of generosity and self-sacrifice. Poor child! with Jim I could have trusted her; but she couldn't love him, so there's nothing to be done." "Why couldn't she?" demanded Berkeley, argumentatively. "She'll never do any better; Jim's a handsome fellow, as men go, brave, honorable and sweet-tempered. What more does she want? It looks to me like sheer perversity."