o its winter rest--all these things spoke to her, as they spoke to
Philip, of other days, of his father, even of the shadowy lady with her
slight, patient cough who had been his mother, and whom Kate always
winced to remember. In this place she felt among friends. She was happy
to think of her Jacqueline come at last into such a haven as Philip's
home.

"Bring me some of your supper--especially the coffee, it smells so
good!--and then come and sit beside me. Here--" she indicated a low
hassock at her feet--"where I can tweak your ear if I want to; because
I'm going to scold."

Philip obeyed in silence. He had fallen rather shy of her, now that he
had her here as he had so often dreamed, sitting beside him in the
twilight, sharing his supper, leaning her head against the cushions of
his own chair, her slender arched feet, in their trim riding-boots,
resting upon his fender. It was not often that the Madam found time or
occasion to stop at the Rectory. What need, indeed, when Philip was so
constantly at Storm? But the image of her sat more often than she
guessed just as she was sitting now, with a worshiper at her feet.

His own thoughts, more than her presence, kept him silent. The phrase
she had uttered so carelessly (he did not altogether know his lady
there!) had set them clamoring--"How you do need a wife to look after
you...."

Philip tried in vain to remember a time when he had not loved this
woman. As a child, made older than his years by the shadow of his
mother's invalidism, he had treasured his glimpses of the reckless,
beautiful girl with her two babies, as other children might treasure
glimpses into fairyland. As an older boy, with his world already in
ruins about him, he had idealized his one friend into a sort of goddess,
a super-human deity who could do no wrong, whose every word was magic
and whose slightest wish law. At that period, if Kate had bade him rob a
bank or commit a murder, he would have done it unquestioningly, happy
only to be of service to her. Later, as he grew into a thoughtful young
manhood, he came to understand that even deities may have their faults;
but Kate's were dear faults, never of the heart. As she became less
goddess she became more human, and so nearer to him, until at last she
was woman to his man. But a very wonderful woman, to be approached, even
in thought, with reverence. Philip's love had so grown with him, step by
step, as to be part of the fabric of himself, large