Lucina turned. "I must go in," said she.

Her hand and Jerome's found each other, with seemingly no volition of
their own. "I am glad you didn't come because you didn't like me,"
Lucina said, softly; "and we can be friends and no need of thinking
of that other."

"Yes," Jerome said, all of a tremble under her touch; "and--you won't
feel offended because I told you?"

"No, only I can't see why you stayed away for that."

Chapter XXVIII

The next afternoon Jerome went to Miss Camilla's tea-party. Sitting
in the arbor, whose interior was all tremulous and vibrant with green
lights and shadows, as with a shifting water-play, sipping tea from
delicate china, eating custards and the delectable plum-cake, he
tasted again one of the few sweet savors of his childhood.

Jerome, in the arbor with three happy young people, taking for the
first time since his childhood a holiday on a work-day, seemed to
comprehend the first notes of that great harmony of life which proves
by the laws of sequence the last. The premonition of some final
blessedness, to survive all renunciation and sacrifice, was upon him.
He felt raised above the earth with happiness. Jerome seemed like
another person to his companions. The wine of youth and certainty of
joy stirred all the light within him to brilliancy. He had naturally
a quicker, readier tongue than Lawrence Prescott, now he gave it
rein.

He could command himself, when he chose and did not consider that it
savored of affectation, to a grace of courtesy beyond all provincial
tradition. In his manners he was not one whit behind even Lawrence
Prescott, with his college and city training, and in face and form
and bearing he was much his superior. Lawrence regarded him with
growing respect and admiration, Elmira with wonder.

As for Miss Camilla, she felt as if tripping over her own inaccuracy
of recollection of him. "I never saw such a change in any one, my
dear," she told Lucina the next day. "I could scarcely believe he was
the little boy who used to weed my garden, and with so few advantages
as he has had it is really remarkable."

"Father says so, too," remarked Lucina, looking steadily at her
embroidery.

Miss Camilla gazed at her reflectively. She had a mild but active
imagination, which had never been dispelled by experience, for
romance and hearts transfixed with darts of love. "I hope he will
never be so unfortunate as to place his affections where they cannot
be reci