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It was the traditional ation, and he felt ashaularly childish No doubt she si her twenty-second birthday, and he wondered at what age "nice" woan to speak for themselves

"Never, if on't let them, I suppose," he mused, and recalled his ht to be as free as we are--"

It would presently be his task to take the bandage fro woman's eyes, and bid her look forth on the world But howhad descended bandaged to the fa some of the new ideas in his scientific books, and the much-cited instance of the Kentucky cave-fish, which had ceased to develop eyes because they had no use for them What if, when he had bidden May Welland to open hers, they could only look out blankly at blankness?

"We ether--we ht travel"

Her face lit up "That would be lovely," she owned: she would love to travel But her s so differently

"As if the mere 'differently' didn't account for it!" the wooer insisted

"Newland! You're so original!" she exulted

His heart sank, for he saw that he was saying all the things that young men in the sa the answers that instinct and tradition taught her to inal! We're all as like each other as those dolls cut out of the same folded paper We're like patterns stencilled on a wall Can't you and I strike out for ourselves, May?"

He had stopped and faced her in the excitement of their discussion, and her eyes rested on hiht unclouded adhed

"If you would--"

"You DO love me, Newland! I'm so happy"

"But then--why not be happier?"

"We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?"

"Why not--why not--why not?"

She looked a little bored by his insistence She knew very well that they couldn't, but it was troublesoue with you But that kind of thing is rather--vulgar, isn't it?" she suggested, relieved to have hit on a word that would assuredly extinguish the whole subject

"Are you so ered by this "Of course I should hate it--so would you," she rejoined, a trifle irritably