I could see my girl’s dear dark head outlined with a circle of moonlight as with a halo, and it barely reached my tall boy’s shoulder.  Her hand lay lightly on his arm, and he bent toward her, bringing his close-cropped brown head nearer hers.  I couldn’t have risen or spoken then, without interrupting them.  I merely glanced out at them, smilingly, with my rosary in my finger.

I reached the end of a decade:  “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be—­”

They stopped at the gate, and fell silent for a space, the girl with her darling face uplifted.  The fleecy wrap she wore fell about her slim shoulders in long lines, glinting with silver.  She did not give the effect of remoteness, but of being near and dear and desirable and beautiful.  The boy, looking upon her with his heart in his eyes, drew nearer.

“Mary Virginia,” said he, eagerly and huskily and passionately and timidly and hopefully and despairingly, “Mary Virginia, are you going to marry anybody?”

Mary Virginia came back from the stars in the night sky to the stars in the young man’s eyes.  “Why, yes, I hope I am,” said she lightly enough, but one saw she had been startled.  “What a funny boy you are, Laurence, to be sure!  You don’t expect me to remain a spinster, do you?”

“You are going to be married?” This time despair was uppermost.

“I most certainly am!” said Mary Virginia stoutly.  “Why, I confided that to you years and years and years ago!  Don’t you remember I always insisted he should have golden hair, and sea-blue eyes, and a classic brow, and a beautiful willingness to go away somewhere and die of a broken heart if I ordered him to?”

“Who is it?”

“Who is who?” she parried provokingly.

“The chap you’re going to marry?”

Mary Virginia appeared to reflect deeply and anxiously.  She put out a foot, with the eternal feminine gesture, and dug a neat little hole in the graveled walk with her satin toe.

“Laurence,” said she.  “I’m going to tell you the truth.  The truth is, Laurence, that I simply hate to have to tell you the truth.”

“Mary Virginia!” he stammered wretchedly.  “You hate to have to tell me the truth?  Oh, my dear, why?  Why?”

“Because.”

“But because why?”

“Because,” said the dear hussy, demurely, “I don’t know.”

Laurence’s arms fell to his sides, helplessly; he craned his neck and stared.

“Mary Virginia!” said he, in a breathless whisper.

Mary Virginia nodded.  “It’s really none of your business, you know,” she explained sweetly; “but as you’ve asked me, why, I’ll tell you.  That same question plagues and fascinates me, too, Laurence.  Why, just consider!  Here’s a whole big, big world full of men—­tall men, short men, lean men, fat men, silly men, wise men, ugly men, handsome men, sad men, glad men, good men, bad men, rich men, poor men,—­oh, all