Part 54 (1/2)

Sometimes I think it's finer than love, for it makes no demands, no promises, no compacts, no professions----”

”Did you ever have such a friends.h.i.+p?”

”No, indeed! If I had--oh pshaw! I never was or shall be fit for it. But I just tell you, Miss Garnet, that in such a case as we've spoken of, the need of such a heart for such a friends.h.i.+p can't be reckoned!”

He smiled st.u.r.dily, and she smiled also, but let compa.s.sion speak in her eyes before she reverently withdrew them. He, too, was still.

They were approaching a large river. The porter, growing fond of them, came, saying:

”Here where we crosses into Yankeedom. Fine view fum de rear platfawm--sun jes' a-sett'n'.”

They went there--the Fairs preferred to sit still--and with the eddies of an almost wintry air ruffling them and John's arm lying along the rail under the window behind them, so as to clasp her instantly if she should lurch, they watched the slender bridge lengthen away and the cold river widen under it between them and Dixie.

Their silence confessed their common emotion. John felt a condescending expansion and did not withdraw his arm even after the bridge was pa.s.sed until he thought Miss Garnet was about to glance around at it, which she had no idea of doing.

”I declare, Miss Garnet, I--I wish----”

She turned her eyes to his handsome face lifted with venturesome diffidence and frowning against the bl.u.s.tering wind.

”I'm afraid ”--he gayly shook his head--”you won't like what I say if you don't take it just as I mean it.” He put his hand over the iron-work again, but she was still looking into his face, and he thought she didn't know it.

”It wouldn't be fair to take it as you don't mean it,” she said. ”What is it?”

”Why, ha-ha--I--I wish I were your brother!--ha-ha! Seriously, I don't believe you can imagine how much a lone fellow--boy or man--can long and pine for a sister. If I'd had a sister, a younger sister--no boy ever pined for an older sister--I believe I'd have made a better man. When I was a small boy----”

Barbara glanced at his breadth and stature with a slow smile.

He laughed. ”O, that was away back yonder before you can remember.”

”It certainly must have been,” she replied, ”and yet----”

”And yet--” he echoed, enjoying his largeness.

”I thought all the pre-his-tor-ic things were big. But what was it you used to do? I know; you used to cry for a sister, didn't you?”

”Yes. Why, how'd you guess that?”

”I can't say, unless it was because I used to cry for a little brother.”

”And why a little one?” he asked.

”I was young and didn't know any better.”

”But later on, you----”

”I wanted the largest size.”

”D'd you ever cry for a brother of the largest size?”

”Why, yes; I nearly cry for one yet, sometimes, when somebody makes me mad.”