Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15.djvu/267

 "Yes, I know my chin 's handsome; but wait till you see my beard."

"Oh, the vanity!" cried Lizzie, "the vanity of men in their faces! Talk of women!" and the silly creature looked up at her lover with most inconsistent satisfaction.

"Oh, the pride of women in their husbands!" said Jack, who of course knew what she was about.

"You 're not my husband, Sir. There 's many a slip" But the young girl stopped short.

"'Twixt the cup and the lip," said Jack. "Go on. I can match your proverb with another. 'There 's many a true word,' and so forth. No, my darling: I 'm not your husband. Perhaps I never shall be. But if anything happens to me, you 'll take comfort, won't you? "

"Never!" said Lizzie, tremulously.

"Oh, but you must; otherwise, Lizzie, I should think our engagement inexcusable. Stuff! who am I that you should cry for me?"

"You are the best and wisest of men. I don't care; you are."

"Thank you for your great love, my dear. That 's a delightful illusion. But I hope Time will kill it, in his own good way, before it hurts any one. I know so many men who are worth infinitely more than I — men wise, generous, and brave — that I shall not feel as if I were leaving you in an empty world."

"Oh, my dear friend! " said Lizzie, after a pause, " I wish you could advise me all my life."

"Take care, take care," laughed Jack; "you don't know what you are bargaining for. But will you let me say a word now? If by chance I 'm taken out of the world, I want you to beware of that tawdry sentiment which enjoins you to be 'constant to my memory.' My memory be hanged! Remember me at my best, — that is, fullest of the desire of humility. Don't inflict me on people. There are some widows and bereaved sweethearts who remind me of the peddler in that horrible murder-story, who carried a corpse in his pack. Really, it 's their stock in trade. The only justification of a man's personality is his rights. What rights has a dead man? — Let 's go down."

They turned southward and went jolting down the hill.

"Do you mind this talk, Lizzie? " asked Ford.

"No," said Lizzie, swallowing a sob, unnoticed by her companion in the sublime egotism of protection; "I like it."

"Very well," said the young man, "I want my memory to help you. When I am down in Virginia, I expect to get a vast deal of good from thinking of you, — to do my work better, and to keep straighter altogether. Like all lovers, I 'm horribly selfish. I expect to see a vast deal of shabbiness and baseness and turmoil, and in the midst of it all I 'm sure the inspiration of patriotism will sometimes fail. Then I 'll think of you. I love you a thousand times better than my country, Liz. — Wicked? So much the worse. It 's the truth. But if I find your memory makes a milksop of me, I shall thrust you out of the way, without ceremony, — I shall clap you into my box or between the leaves of my Bible, and only look at you on Sunday."

"I shall be very glad, Sir, if that makes you open your Bible frequently," says Elizabeth, rather demurely.

"I shall put one of your photographs against every page," cried Ford; "and then I think I shall not lack a text for my meditations. Don't you know how Catholics keep little pictures of their adored Lady in their prayer-books?"

"Yes, indeed," said Lizzie; "I should think it would be a very soul-stirring picture, when you are marching to the front, the night before a battle, — a poor, stupid girl, knitting stupid socks, in a stupid Yankee village."

Oh, the craft of artless tongues! Jack strode along in silence a few moments, splashing straight through a puddle; then, ere he was quite clear of it, he stretched out his arm and gave his companion a long embrace.

"And pray what am I to do," resumed Lizzie, wondering, rather proudly perhaps, at Jack's averted face, "while