needed no telling. Not one woman in a thousand could love like this
soft, sweet thing, whose outer appearance was so calm and still. She
who had contrived to love with tenderness a cantankerous old woman,
lavished a very flood of devotion on the man of her choice. His starved
nature absorbed it like a thirsty plant, but his delight in her was
still fearful, incredulous; the sudden transformation of his life had
the perilous radiance of a dream.

The engagement had been a veritable nine days' wonder. English
newspapers had published more or less accurate life histories of the
interesting couple; American journals had excelled themselves in
imaginative details. Blurred caricature portraits of the prospective
bride and bridegroom had appeared side by side, to the amusement of the
one, and the helpless fury of the other. The outer world labelled
Grizel, fool, and Martin, knave; envied the unsuspecting distant
relations, to whom would come the news of a great inheritance; and then
promptly, mercifully, forgot. Friends also ceased in due time to
forward notes of ostensible congratulation, behind which the real amaze
was plainly stamped; only one effect was of any lasting nature, and
regarding this Martin felt an odd mixture of chagrin and elation. His
agent reported a large increase in the sale of his books, and publishers
bid against each other for the privilege of publishing his new novel.
The artist in him resented so spurious a success; the lover rejoiced in
the prospect of increased prosperity which would make it possible to
provide more luxuries for his bride.

Grizel was whole-hearted in her choice of love rather than riches, but
when one has been accustomed to think in thousands, it is difficult to
grasp the importance of fractional amounts. She thought it absurd to
weigh the matter of an extra hundred a year in so important a matter as
the rent of the house in which one would have to live; she took for
granted the existence of a carriage, as simply as that of a table, and
had not dimly imagined the possibility of existence without a maid.
Martin did not delude himself that the financial future was free from
difficulty, but as for years past he had been living well below his
income, he was prepared to meet the exigencies of a period of
adjustment. Meantime Grizel's suggestion of the "vidder" seemed an
admirable solution, and he told himself cheerfully that with such a
check on household expenses, things co