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230 in front of her, "here goes! now I am going to astonish you very much, Cyn!" "Very well! I am all impatience! Go on!"

"But it is no joke!" he replied, in protest to her laughing face. "If I am to make a fool of myself I am going to do it in dead earnest!"

"That is the way, of course," responded Cyn, but beginning to look a little surprised.

For Jo seemed very much excited, and his manner indicated anything but a jest. Extraordinary creature, that Jo! His next proceeding was even more strange; that was to ask the apparently irrelevant question,

"Do you remember what we were all saying a short time ago, about Fate?"

"Certainly; but are you going to favor me with a dissertation on Fate, instead of making a fool of yourself?"

"No!" was the solemn reply, "have a little patience, Cyn. The fact is, you are my Fate—there is no mistake about it!—and must be either cruel or kind, and there's no alternative!"

Cyn's surprise increased visibly.

"I am sure, I do not understand you at all! how queer you are to-day, Jo!"

"Of course I am queer! when a man throws his theories and hobbies to the winds, and confesses