"'Across the hills and far away,
        Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day,
        The happy Princess followed him.'

"Only in this case, you see," said Carlton, "I am following the happy Princess."

"No; but seriously, though," said Miss Morris, "what is it you mean? Are you going to paint her portrait?"

"I never thought of that," exclaimed Carlton. "I don't know but what your idea is a good one. Miss Morris, that's a great idea." He shook his head approvingly. "I did not do wrong to confide in you," he said. "It was perhaps taking a liberty; but as you have not considered it as such, I am glad I spoke."

"But you don't really mean to tell me," exclaimed the girl, facing about, and nodding her head at him, "that you are going abroad after a woman whom you have never seen, and because you like a picture of her in a paper?"

"I do," said Carlton. "Because I like her picture, and because she is a Princess."

"Well, upon my word," said Miss Morris, gazing at him with evident admiration, "that's what my younger brother would call a distinctly sporting proposition. Only I don't see," she added, "what her being a Princess has to do with it."

"You don't?" laughed Carlton, easily. "That's the best part of it--that's the plot. The beauty of being in love with a Princess, Miss Morris," he said, "lies in the fact that you can't marry her; that you can love her deeply and forever, and nobody will ever come to you and ask your intentions, or hint that after such a display of affection yo