may mean very little."

"Are you so wholly bent upon winning her, Graydon?"

"Oh, you little Mother Eve! You are surely going to get well. There is
no sign of longevity in a woman so certain as curiosity. I've not yet
reached the point of breaking my heart about her, whatever she does.
Wouldn't you like so beautiful a creature for your sister?"

"The contrast would be too great. I should indeed seem a ghost
beside her. Still, if she would make you happy--" But she could go no
further.

"Well, well, that's a very uncertain problem of the future. Don't say
anything about it at home. My brother don't like her father. They do
not get on well in business. Let us talk about yourself. What are you
going to do while I am gone?"

"What can such a shadow as I do? Tell me rather what you are going
to do, and where you'll be. You are real, and what you do amounts to
something."

"There's one thing I'm going to do, and that is, write you some jolly
letters that will make you laugh in spite of yourself. They will be
part of the tonic treatment that I want you to promise me to begin at
once."

"I have already entered upon it, Graydon," she said, quietly, "and I
don't think any one will value your letters more than I, only I may
not get strong enough to write very much in reply. I've never had