d together at the
nearest florist's would not haunt a man's dreams o'nights, as hers does!
I haven't any need for praises sauced with lies! I spurn hyperbole. I
scorn exaggeration. I merely state calmly and judicially that she was
God's masterpiece,--the most beautiful and adorable and indescribable
creature that He ever made."

She smiled at this. "You should have told her, Olaf," said Miss
Stapylton. "You should have told her that you cared."

He gave a gesture of dissent. "She had everything," he pointed out,
"everything the world could afford her. And, doubtless, she would have
been very glad to give it all up for me, wouldn't she?--for me, who
haven't youth or wealth or fame or anything? Ah, I dare say she would
have been delighted to give up the world she knew and loved,--the world
that loved her,--for the privilege of helping me digest old county
records!"

And Rudolph Musgrave laughed again, though not mirthfully.

But the girl was staring at him, with a vague trouble in her eyes. "You
should have told her, Olaf," she repeated.

And at this point he noted that the arbutus-flush in her cheeks began to
widen slowly, until, at last, it had burned back to the little pink
ears, and had merged into the coppery glory of her hair, and had made
her, if such a thing were possible--which a minute ago it manifestly was
not,--more beautiful and adorable and indescribable than ever before.

"Ah, yes!" he scoffed, "Lichfield would have made a fitting home for
her. She would have been very happy here, shut off from the world with
us,--with us, whose forefathers have married and intermarried with one
another until the stock is worthless, and impotent for any further
achievement. For here, you know, we have the best blood in America, and
--for utilitarian purposes--that means the worst blood. Ah, we may prate
of our superiority to the rest of the world,--and God knows, we
do!--but, at bottom, we are worthless. We are worn out, I tell you! we
are effete and stunted in brain and will-power, and the very desire of
life is gone out of us! We are contented simply to exist in Lichfield.
And she--"

He paused, and a new, fierce light came into his eyes. "She was so
beautiful!" he said, half-angrily, between clenched teeth.

"You are just like the rest of them, Olaf," she lamented, with a hint
of real sadness. "You imagine you are in love with a girl because you
happen to like the color of her eyes, or because there is a curve a