This was Miss. Juno, an American girl bred in Europe, now, after years of absence, passing a season in her native land. Her parents, who had taken a country home in one of the California valleys, found in their only child all that was desirable in life. This was not to be wondered at; it may be said of her in the theatrical parlance that she "filled the stage." When Miss. Juno dawned upon the scene the children grew grave, and, after a little delay, having taken formal leave of the company, they entered their carriage and were rapidly driven homeward. If Paul and Miss. Juno had been formed for one another and were now, at the right moment and under the most favorable auspices, brought together for the first time, they could not have mated more naturally. If Miss. Juno had been a young man, instead of a very charming woman, she would of course have been Paul's chum. If Paul had been a young woman--some of his friends thought he had narrowly escaped it and did not hesitate to say so--he would instinctively have become her confidante. As it was, they promptly entered into a sympathetic friendship which seemed to have been without beginning and was apparently to be without end. They began to talk of the same things at the same moment, often uttering the very same words and then turned to one another with little shouts of unembarrassed laughter. They agreed upon all points, and aroused each other to a ridiculous pitch of enthusiasm over nothing in particular. Harry English beamed; there was evidently nothing wanted to complete his happiness. Mrs. English, her eyes fairly dancing with delight, could only exclaim at intervals, "Bless the boy!" or, "What a pair of children!" then fondly pass her arm about the waist of Miss. Juno--which was not waspish in girth--or rest her hand upon Paul's shoulder with a show of maternal affection peculiarly grateful to him. It was with difficulty the half-dazed young fellow could keep apart from Miss. Juno. If he found she had wandered into the next room, while he was engaged for a moment, he followed at his earliest convenience, and when their eyes met they smiled responsively without knowing why, and indeed not caring in the least to know. They were as ingenuous as two children in their liking for one another; their trust in each other would have done credit to the Babes in the Wood. What Paul realized, without any preliminary analysis of his mind or heart, was that he wanted to be near her, very near her; and that he was miserable when this was not the case. If she was out of his sight for a moment the virtue seemed to have gone from him and he fell into the pathetic melancholy which he enjoyed in the days when he wrote a great deal of indifferent verse, and was burdened with the conviction that his mission in life was to make rhymes without end.