"Souvenirs for the carnival! Souvenirs for the carnival!" The voice a man's voice it was, cheery and sweet-tonedseemed strangely familiar to Ray Hollingsworth, as he stopped elbowing his way through the mass of people who had gathered to see the parade; and, turning in the direction of the voice, he saw a young man of delicate form and features, who was working his way along the edge of the crowd where it had surged out into the street, while he called out his bright little button souvenirs in so friendly a way that many bought from sheer good will called forth by the man's own spirit.

"It's Sunny, sure enough!" exclaimed Hollingsworth; and for a full moment he studied the familiar face, which in spite of its cheerfulness gave proof in the pinched look about the mouth that it was a brave spirit, not simply a happy one, that dwelt within. Then, too, the pretty, delicate color of the cheeks shaded off strangely into an ashy tint near the ears and jaw; and the clear blue eyes, even though glancing brightly into the faces around, nevertheless gave signs, to those who could read, that the man was not a stranger to suffering.

As Hollingsworth stood there for that brief moment there was time enough for two very distinct emotions to possess him—a mixture of pity and admiration for the man whom one short year ago he had merely endured as he had endured all the others with whom his lot had been cast, and a very unusual yet keen dissatisfaction with himself.

A masterful pushing aside of the intervening people—and he had grasped the other's hand.

"Stewart, old man! How are you?"

Hollingsworth was even more surprised at his own cordiality than was Stewart himself; but in a moment the embarrassment had been forgotten in the interest each felt for the other.

"Why, Hollingsworth, you back here again? Hope it's only to see the sights of the carnival, and not for your health? Oh, well (Stewart had seen the truth in the look of bitterness that swept over the dark face), you're looking so well it can't be much the matter. And besides, this is a pretty fine place to have to come to, now ain't it? Just look at those mountains!"

There was very little to be seen from their point of view, just a glimpse of brilliant blue peaks above the houses near by; but Stewart had touched the right chord, for the one thing that had made his previous stay in the North Woods little short of a purgatorial penance to Hollingsworth was the great natural beauty of the region, a beauty to which he was keenly sensitive.

"Oh, yes," came the rejoinder in a listless voice; and for a moment the spoiled child of Fortune, absorbed in the thought of his own trouble, stamped out a series of footprints in the snow, while the one who had struggled all his life against heavy odds walked a few paces down the line, calling out persuasively, "Souvenirs for the carnival! Souvenirs for the carnival!"

As Stewart worked his way back to where Hollingsworth stood musing, the cry struck Ray in a new light.

"By the way, Stewart, s'pose I'll have to have some of those things to send away as mementoes of this grand affair." The cynical expression was followed by a softer light in the eyes as he added: "Let's have a dozen of 'em. Hey? Not so many left? Been doing well, have you? Well, yes; five 'll do just as well. But how are you, Sunny, anyway?" The word would come out in spite of him, it suited so perfectly.

"Oh, pretty fair. Yes, I'm all right-now."

Hollingsworth learned later that Stewart had risen from a sick-bed that very day in order to sell his wares, so as to eke out his "living," as it is called.

Just then the approaching pageant came in sight, and all further talk was limited to comments on the decorated sleighs and floats, suggestive of camp life and North Woods industries. By the time the parade had passed the intense cold made every one eager for shelter; and so, with a mere "Goodby" to Stewart, Hollingsworth had jumped into the 'bus, which was soon climbing the road to the Sanitarium where, as he had expressed it that very morning, he "was doomed to another incarceration."

But as the horses turned into the grounds at dusk and the brilliant lights from the twenty cottages streamed out across the deep snow, giving the heavily-laden trees an added beauty, the restfulness and good cheer of the place crept even into the discontented heart of the newcomer; and as he stepped on to the wide piazza of the main building, he stood for a moment half conscious of the general air of comradeship and gaiety, yet thinking this time, not of self, but of the man he had left in the village.

What were his surroundings? A meager room tucked up under the roof in a second or third rate boarding-house, most probably.

"By Jove," exclaimed Hollingsworth aloud, "he doesn't look strong enough to climb a single flight of stairs, and that's a fact!"

As 'bus after 'bus of the returning sight-seers drew up at the steps and yielded up its load of apparently happy-hearted young folks, who stood chatting in groups or strolled up and down the wide veranda while waiting for the bell to summon them to supper, Hollingsworth felt a growing desire to be one with them. Despite the intense cold of midwinter and the white-robed earth, the place-with its colonnaded piazza well supplied with electric lights, its gay throng of young folks, its laughter and happy voices-was suggestive of a summer hotel, though far richer than such resorts in the elements of

fellowship and freedom; and the quiet observer who had withdrawn into the shadow by the door now warmed as much toward these people as he had formerly shrunk from them. A hunger for companionship possessed him, and as he passed into the great hall and thence into the office to report his arrival he was conscious of feeling almost glad to be there. Life somehow seemed richer and fuller than it had any time since that dark hour when he had lost his fortune and his health almost simultaneously.

The bell sent forth its good news of a waiting supper, and Hollingsworth passed with the rest into the large and pleasantly lighted dining-room, where he found himself seated by the "little woman in white," as some called her, Miss Rutherford, who was at that time the only trained nurse in the place.

As he had formerly been under her charge (not so much because of his physical condition as because he imagined he needed all the peculiar advantages that came with a room in the Infirmary), they were soon chatting pleasantly.

"And how is your mother, Mr. Hollingsworth?" asked Miss Rutherford, in her low, sweet voice. "How favored you are to have her come up here so often!"

"I'm not so sure about that-that is, I mean," explained Hollingsworth, hastily, "of course, it was awfully good of my mother to come, and all that, you know; but I'm not sure but it hurt me in a way. I'm beginning to think I missed something when I was here before."

The Sanitarium, although thoroughly well appointed in every respect and unusually pleasant as regards surroundings and general plan, is nevertheless conducted in such a way as to allow wage-earners and people of very limited means to receive its benefits. It was in fact founded with that end in view, its originator and father being a man of wide and deep sympathies and one whose love for his brothers always blossoms in works of practical helpfulness. But it was just because the patients came mainly from the class of breadwinners that Hollingsworth had held aloof; for although obliged through the loss of his fortune to avail himself of its moderate

charges, he nevertheless had done so in a spirit of rebellious protest and exclusiveness. His mother, too, had encouraged him in his feeling of superiority; and while, because of her anxiety over his health she had urged him to remain in the Sanitarium, she had nevertheless increased his dissatisfaction by constantly bemoaning the fact that he was so entirely "out of his element."

Having lived like a king all his life, Hollingsworth found it impossible to associate with the patients except in a spirit of condescension; and this attitude of his had made the self-respecting, independent men and women give him a wide berth. So that his first stay there had been a most gloomy one; and, failing to derive any pronounced benefit, he had left the place confident that he would now find more congenial surroundings. But though he could leave the place, which had failed to please him, the spirit of dissatisfaction was not so easily disposed of. Wherever he went in quest of health his limited means threw him in contact with people who were in the same or harder circumstances, so that his surroundings were in no way bettered, and inwardly there was always the same haughty rebellion against fate-the same feeling of exclusiveness.

After each new move, resulting as it invariably did in a strengthening of his proud consciousness that he was not able to find enjoyment with the common herd,-that he was in fact a stranger in a strange land,-his thoughts had reverted more. and more to the place he had left in scorn. The range of mountains on which he had feasted his eyes, day in and day out, would come before him, now robed in their rich blue tints or again wearing their gorgeous hues of the sunset hour, and his heart yearned for those quiet, faithful friends that had ministered so gently, so unobtrusively to his need.

Then again there would come some reminiscence of the good times which the patients all around him were having, and which he had watched more than he had been aware of at the time. As he looked back at it, the general air of the place drew him irresistibly-the freedom of it all, the comradeship and unconventionality; and he realized at last how singularly free