“You were asking about Tim’s friends, Mary,” said I.

“Was I?” she returned.  “I had forgotten.  What did I say?”

“You asked if he had made any friends,” I replied, as calmly as I could.  “I was going to read you what he said.”

“Oh!” she cried.  And at last she dropped her knitting, and resting her elbows on her knees, clasping her chin in her hands, she looked up at me from her low chair.  “I thought it was forbidden,” she said.

“Tim didn’t say anything about not reading it,” I answered.  “At first, though, it seemed best not to; but you’ll understand, Mary.  Of course, we mustn’t take him too seriously, but it does sound foolish.  Poor Tim!”

“Poor Tim!” repeated the girl.  “He must be in love.”

“He is,” said I.

“Then don’t read it!” she cried.  “Surely he never intended you to read it to me.”

“Of course he did,” I laughed, for at last I had aroused her, and now her infernal knitting was forgotten; she no longer strained her ears for Weston’s footfalls.  Her eyes were fixed on me.  “Poor old Tim!  Well, let’s wish him luck, Mary.  Now listen.”

So I read her the forbidden pages.

“’You should see Edith Parker, Mark.  She is so different from the girls of Black Log.  Her father is head book-keeper in the store, and he has been very good to me.  Last week he took me home to dinner with him.  He has a nice house in Brooklyn.  His wife is dead, and he has just his daughter.  We have no women in Black Log that compare to her.  She is tall and slender and has fair hair and blue eyes.’”

“I hate fair-haired women,” broke in Mary with some asperity.  “They are so vain.”

“I agree with you,” said I.  “That is invariably the case, and dark hair is so much more beautiful; but we must make allowance for Tim.  Let us see—­’fair hair and blue eyes and the sweetest face’—­I do believe that brother of mine is out of his head to write such stuff.”

“He certainly is,” said Mary, very quietly.

“Poor Tim!  But go on.”

“’We played cards together for a while, till old Mr. Parker went asleep in his chair, and then Edith and I had a chance to talk.  You know, Mark, I’ve always been a bit afraid of women, and awkward and ill at ease around them.  But Edith is different from the girls of Black Log.  We were friends in a minute.  You don’t know what it is to talk to these girls who have been everywhere, and seen everything, and know everything.  They are so much above you, they inspire you.  For a girl like that no sacrifice a man can make is too great.  To win a girl like that a man must do something and be something.  Now up in Black Log——­’”

“Yes, up in Black Log the women are different,” said Mary in a quiet voice.  “They have to work in Black Log, and it’s the men they work for.  If they sat on thrones and talked wisdom and looked beautiful, the kitchen-fires would die out and the children go naked.”