a pair of boots with tassels which I passed in a shop window in
Copenhagen every day for a whole year, because they were the only
other pair I ever saw? I don't know--there may have been more;
perhaps others wore them. I know she did. Curls she had, too--curls
of yellow gold. Why do girls not have curls these days? It is such
a rare thing to see them, that when you do you feel like walking
behind them miles and miles just to feast your eyes. Too much
bother, says my daughter. Bother? Why, I have carried one of your
mother's, miss! all these--there, I shall not say how long--and
carry it still. Bother? Great Scott!

[Illustration: The Meeting on the Long Bridge.]

And is this going to be a love story, then? Well, I have turned
it over and over, and looked at it from every angle, but if I am
to tell the truth, as I promised, I don't see how it can be helped.
If I am to do that, I must begin at the Long Bridge. I stepped
on it that day a boy, and came off it with the fixed purpose of a
man. How I stuck to it is part of the story--the best part, to my
thinking; and I ought to know, seeing that our silver wedding comes
this March. Silver wedding, humph! She isn't a week older than the
day I married her--not a week. It was all in the way of her that
I came here; though at the time I am speaking of I rather guessed
than knew it was Elizabeth. She lived over there beyond the bridge.
We had been children together. I suppose I had seen her a thousand
times before without noticing. In school I had heard the boys
trading in her for marbles and brass buttons as a partner at dances
and games--generally trading off the other girls for her. She was
such a pretty dancer! I was not. "Soldiers and robbers" was more
to my taste. That any girl, with curls or without, should be worth