because it is so transient that beauty is pathetic?" she said; "because we
can never come back to it in quite the same way? I am a sentimental girl.
If you are born so, it is never entirely teased out of you, is it?
Besides, to-night is all a dream. It isn't real, you know. You couldn't be
mawkish."

Her tone was gentle as a caress, and it made him tingle to his finger-
tips. "How do you know?" he asked in a low voice.

"I just know. Do you think I'm very 'bold and forward'?" she said,
dreamily.

"It was your song I wanted to be sentimental about. I am like one 'who
through long days of toil'--only that doesn't quite apply--'and nights
devoid of ease'--but I can't claim that one doesn't sleep well here; it is
Plattville's specialty--like one who

"'Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.'"

"Those blessed old lines!" she said. "Once a thing is music or poetry, all
the hand-organs and elocutionists in the world cannot ruin it, can they?
Yes; to live here, out of the world, giving up the world, doing good and
working for others, working for a community as you do----"

"I am not quite shameless," he interrupted, smilingly. "I was given a life
sentence for incompetency, and I've served five years of it, which have
been made much happier than my deserts."

"No," she persisted, "that is your way of talking of yourself; I know you