there's nothing to make one _un_-happy. Sounds easy enough,
doesn't it?"

Martin's lip curled.

"I wonder," he said. "I wonder what Katrine would say if you propounded
that theory to her? I fancy, poor girl, that the very opposite of your
programme would come nearer to her outlook on life. She finds it as
difficult to be happy as you do to be miserable. And yet--she's had her
chance!"

"Martin, she has _not_! What chance has she had? Tucked away in this
dark old house, with you shut up in your study all day, and in your
moods all night? My old Buddy loves me; it's not an ordinary form of
loving perhaps, but she _does_! I'm more to her than the whole world.
And I've had my fling... Poor old Katrine has had no love, and no
fling, nothing but duty, and brotherly affection, and home-made clothes.
It's enough to make any woman snap. I'm glad she _is_ discontented.
I'll make her more discontented still, before I've done. She's
pot-bound, like your stale old ferns, and needs uprooting, and shaking,
and planting in fresh, strong earth. Then she'll bloom, and you, poor
bat! will be amazed at what a fine big bloom it is. It isn't a sign of
greatness, Martin, to blink in the sun, because one is too lazy too
move, and is content to bask, and be stroked, and lick up cream. That's
me! Katrine is bigger; it needs more to fill her life, but she's only
just beginning to grow. You don't know, Martin, how sweet a woman
Katrine is going to be!"

Martin smiled; a smile of serene, unshakable conviction. He knew his
sister. She was a good girl, well meaning, if a little difficult by
nature; he, of all people on earth, would be the last to deny Katrine's
good points, but--to compare her with Grizel, to account to her a
greatness of nature above that of the sweetest, kindliest, most loving
of women,--that was a flight of fancy beyond even his well-trained
powers!

"And who," queried Grizel, with sudden energy, "is Katrine thinking of,
when she sits smiling into space, and giving silly answers to obvious
questions, and putting horrid sugar into my tea,--tell me that, if you
can! It is your profession in life to study men and women, and analyse
their thoughts. What do you make of the mystery of the woman upon your
hearth?"

Martin smiled superior.

"There is none. She is thinking of the grocer, and determining to hurl
another complaint at his head, because he will insist upon sending us
sandy grit, instead of hone