acing herself on the
chalk-mark traced on the turf she lifted the bow to her shoulder and
took aim. The attitude was so full of a classic grace that a murmur of
appreciation followed her appearance, and Archer felt the glow of
proprietorship that so often cheated him into momentary well-being.
Her rivals--Mrs. Reggie Chivers, the Merry girls, and divers rosy
Thorleys, Dagonets and Mingotts, stood behind her in a lovely anxious
group, brown heads and golden bent above the scores, and pale muslins
and flower-wreathed hats mingled in a tender rainbow. All were young
and pretty, and bathed in summer bloom; but not one had the nymph-like
ease of his wife, when, with tense muscles and happy frown, she bent
her soul upon some feat of strength.

"Gad," Archer heard Lawrence Lefferts say, "not one of the lot holds
the bow as she does"; and Beaufort retorted: "Yes; but that's the only
kind of target she'll ever hit."

Archer felt irrationally angry. His host's contemptuous tribute to
May's "niceness" was just what a husband should have wished to hear
said of his wife. The fact that a coarseminded man found her lacking
in attraction was simply another proof of her quality; yet the words
sent a faint shiver through his heart. What if "niceness" carried to
that supreme degree were only a negation, the curtain dropped before an
emptiness? As he looked at May, returning flushed and calm from her
final bull's-eye, he had the feeling that he had never yet lifted that
curtain.

She took the congratulations of her rivals and of the rest of the
company with the simplicity that was her crowning grace. No one could
ever be jealous of her triumphs because she managed to give the feeling
that she would have been just as serene if she had missed them. But
when her eyes met her husband's her face glowed with the pleasure she
saw in his.

Mrs. Welland's basket-work pony-carriage was waiting for them, and they
drove off among the dispersing carriages, May handling the reins and
Archer sitting at her side.

The afternoon sunlight still lingered upon the bright lawns and
shrubberies, and up and down Bellevue Avenue rolled a double line of
victorias, dog-carts, landaus and "vis-a-vis," carrying well-dressed
ladies and gentlemen away from the Beaufort garden-party, or homeward
from their daily afternoon turn along the Ocean Drive.

"Shall we go to see Granny?" May suddenly proposed. "I should like to
tell her myself that I've won the