"Well, you know, it is much better that you should not." "Perhaps so," answered John rather sadly.

"I don't know.

Frankly, Mrs.
Goddard, did not you sometimes think I was very foolish last Christmas ?" "Very," she said, smiling at him kindly.

"But I think you have changed.

I think you are more of a man, now--you have something more serious--" "I used to think I was very serious, and so I was," said John, with the air of a man who refers to the follies of his long past youth.