ger than the man; at twenty the man is stronger than
the artist.

An uncanny creature, so most folks would have described Jessica
Dearwood. Few would have imagined her developing into the good-natured,
easy-going Mrs. Camelford of middle age. The animal, so strong within
her at twenty, at thirty had burnt itself out. At eighteen, madly,
blindly in love with red-bearded, deep-voiced Dick Everett she would,
had he whistled to her, have flung herself gratefully at his feet, and
this in spite of the knowledge forewarning her of the miserable life
he would certainly lead her, at all events until her slowly developing
beauty should give her the whip hand of him--by which time she would
have come to despise him. Fortunately, as she told herself, there was
no fear of his doing so, the future notwithstanding. Nellie Fanshawe's
beauty held him as with chains of steel, and Nellie had no intention
of allowing her rich prize to escape her. Her own lover, it was true,
irritated her more than any man she had ever met, but at least he
would afford her refuge from the bread of charity. Jessica Dearwood, an
orphan, had been brought up by a distant relative. She had not been the
child to win affection. Of silent, brooding nature, every thoughtless
incivility had been to her an insult, a wrong. Acceptance of young
Camelford seemed her only escape from a life that had become to her a
martyrdom. At forty-one he would wish he had remained a bachelor; but at
thirty-eight that would not trouble her. She would know herself he was
much better off as he was. Meanwhile, she would have come to like him,
to respect him. He would be famous, she would be proud of him. Crying
into her pillow--she could not help it--for love of handsome Dick, it
was still a comfort to reflect that Nellie Fanshawe, as it were, was
watching over her, protecting her from herself.

Dick, as he muttered to himself a dozen times a day, ought to marry
Jessica. At thirty-eight she would be his ideal. He looked at her as
she was at eighteen, and shuddered. Nellie at thirty would be plain and
uninteresting. But when did consideration of the future ever cry halt
to passion: when did a lover ever pause thinking of the morrow? If her
beauty was to quickly pass, was not that one reason the more urging him
to possess it while it lasted?

Nellie Fanshawe at forty would be a saint. The prospect did not please
her: she hated saints. She would love the tiresome, solemn Nathaniel: of
wha