A Tar-Heel Baron

by Mabell S. C. Smith

"What? Friedrich?"

"Yes. Now just one time more."

"How absurd you are, Friedrich!"

"I thank you. Now tell me."

"Why, for the first day or two there was so much to do in getting them away in their different directions—Hilda and John. Grandmother has had a letter from John, from Palm Beach. He has joined Baron von Sternburg there. And then—oh, Friedrich, perhaps it was foolish, but I could not feel as if we ought to be happy, you and I, so soon after that."

"What a dear, sensitive child you are! And you thought the time of mourning was up to-day, did you?"

"No, but—you won't make fun of me if I tell you?"

"I have al-ways supposed that it was you who teased me."

"But you might think it was funny ever so many years from now!"

"Ah, now there are going to be years in the future. Only a little while ago the future was made up of thousands and thousands and thousands of inter-rminable days."