"I wish you would leave them off altogether, then, Ishmael. I always
understand that you thank me far more than I deserve."

"Never! How could I? 'Thank you!' they are but two words. How could
they repay you, Bee? Dearest, this evening you shall know how much I
thank you. Until then, farewell." He pressed her hand and left her.

Now Ishmael was far too clear-sighted not to have seen that Bee had
fixed her pure maidenly affections upon him, and to see also that
Bee's choice was well approved by her parents, who had long loved
him as a son. While Ishmael's hands had been busy with the book-
packing his thoughts had been busy with Bee and with the problem
that her love presented him. He had loved Claudia with an all-
absorbing passion. But she had left him and married another, and so
stricken a deathblow to his love. But this love was dying very hard,
and in its death-struggles was rending and tearing the heart which
was its death-bed.

And in the meantime Bee's love was alive and healthy, and it was
fixed on him. He was not insensible, indifferent, ungrateful for
this dear love. Indeed, it was the sweetest solace that he had in
this world. He felt in the profoundest depths of his heart all the
loveliness of Bee's nature. And most tenderly he loved her--as a
younger sister. What then should he do? Offer to Bee the poor,
bleeding heart that Claudia had played with, broken, and cast aside
as worthless? All that was true, noble, and manly in Ishmael's
nature responded:

"God forbid!"