paper, and when I come back I expect to open a studio of my own. The only thing I hate about the affair is that I must leave you, but it won't be so hard for you to bear, will it, dear? You know it is for my own and your good." When all the misery of losing him for months, when all the dread of losing him forever, perhaps, in that voyage across the awful sea, had been lost in the joy over _his_ good fortune, Justine gloried. Though her voice trembled and grew faint and her eyes glistened as she read the news to Mrs. Crane and 'Gene, it was from pride and joy. How proud she was of him! A week later Dudley Sherrod and wife sailed from New York. As the huge ship left the dock, Celeste, clasping his arm and looking up into his face, somber with thoughts of the future, exclaimed: "We are at sea! We are at sea!" "Yes," he said, slowly. "We are at sea." * * * * * "I see in a Chicago paper that a feller named Dudley Sherrod wuz married t'other day," remarked Postmaster Hardesty to Parson Marks while the latter was waiting for his mail at the tollgate a few days later. "Cur'os, how derned big this world is, ain't it, parson?" "Oh, Chicago is a world in itself," said the parson. "Kinder startled me when I seen that name," Jim went on, pausing in his perusal of a postal card directed to Martin Grimes. "By ginger, Martin's been buyin' hogs up in Grant township--I mean--er--I sh'd say that this is a derned big world," he stammered, guiltily dropping the card behind the counter. "I reckon there's a hunderd Sherrods in Chicago, though." "Oh, I daresay you'd find three or four Dudley Sherrods there if you looked through the directory." "Our Jud has jist gone to the old country, Harve Crose tells me." "Is it possible?" "Goin' to take some drawin' lessons, I believe." "I am very glad to hear that he has such a remarkable opportunity. But I was under the impression that he had little or no money." Mr. Marks was now deeply interested. "Harve said somethin' about a friend payin' all the expenses because he took a likin' to Jud." "And what provision has he made for Justine?" "Well, now you're askin' somethin' I cain't answer. Harve's such a derned careless fool he didn't ast anythin' about that part of it." Later in the afternoon Mr. Marks drove back to the tollgate and asked Hardesty if he had kept the paper containing the notice of the wedding in Chicago. He could not account for the feeling that inspired this act on his part. Something indefinable had formed itself in his brain and he could not rest until he had settled it within himself.