e
dress of the afternoon--or was it one like it?--with no ornaments, no
bridal veil. I have always pitied men who have to plight their troth
to a moving mass of lace and tulle, weighed down with orange-blossoms
massive as lead. This was my own little wife as she would walk by my
side through life, dressed as she might be the next day and always.

But the next day it was the tartan cloak that she wore, by special
request, as we climbed the hill to the Ledge. It was spring
indeed--bluebirds in the air, and all the sky shone clear and warm.

"Let _me_ begin," said my wife as she took her old seat under
the sheltering pine. "You can't have anything to say, Charlie, in
comparison with me."

There was a short preliminary pause, and then she began.

CHAPTER XII.

"Well, after you wouldn't take me to Europe, you know--"

"You naughty girl!"

"No interruptions, sir. After you _couldn't_ take me to Europe I
felt very much hurt and wounded, and ready to catch at any straw of
suspicion. I ran away from you that night and left you in the parlor,
hoping that you would call me back, and yet longing to hide myself
from you too. You understand?"

"Yes, let us not dwell on that."

"Well, I believe I never thought once of Fanny Meyrick's going to
Europe too until she joined us on the road that day--you remember?--at
the washerwoman's gate."

"Yes; and do _you_ remember how Fidget and I barked at her with all
our hearts?"

"I was piqued then at the air of ownership Fanny seemed to assume in
you. She had just come to Lenox, I knew; she could know nothing of our
intimacy, our relations; and this seemed like the renewal of something
old--something that had been going on before. Had she any claim on
you? I wondered. And then, too, you were so provokingly reticent about
her whenever her name had been mentioned before."

"Was I? What a fool I was! But, Bessie dear, I could not say to even
you, then, that I believed Fanny Meyrick was in--cared a great deal
for me."

"I understand," said Bessie nodding. "We'll skip that, and take it for
granted. But you see _I_ couldn't take anything for granted but
just what I saw that day; and the little memorandum-book and Fanny's
reminiscences nearly killed me. I don't know how I sat through it all.
I tried to avoid you all the rest of the day. I wanted to think, and
to find out the truth from Fanny."

"I should think you _did_ avoid me pretty successfully, leaving me
to dine coldly at