dn't be." Mrs. Wayne paused
with a lovely flush before going on. "You didn't see us, though we
stopped quite near you. My dear, it's _very_ evident that--" She
paused once more, this time with arch significance. "Oh, you needn't
be afraid. I never know anything until I'm told. But George is such a
good fellow! I'm sure I ought to know--he was perfectly devoted to me.
Not the kind girls are apt to take a fancy to, perhaps,--girls are so
foolish and romantic,--but he'd be awfully nice to his wife. Harry
says he's a lot richer than anybody knows. And people are so much
happier married--the right people, of course."

"Did you have a pleasant time while you were away?" asked Dosia, as
she lay back in her low, wide, prettily chintz-covered arm-chair. If
she had had some half-defined impulse to confide in Alice Wayne, it
was gone, melted away in this too fervid sunshine of approval. She
had, instead, one of her accessions of dainty shyness; the ring on her
finger, underneath her glove, seemed to burn into her flesh. Her eyes
roved warily around the room as Mrs. Wayne talked about her
wedding-trip and her husband, folding up her Harry's neckties as she
chattered, her fingers lingering over them with little secret pats.
She brought out some of her pretty dresses afterward for Dosia's
inspection. From the open door of a closet beyond, a pair of shoes
was distinctly visible--Harry's shoes, which the wife laughingly put
back into place as she went and closed the door. It was impossible not
to see that even those clumsy, monstrously thick-soled things were
touched with sentiment for her because the feet of her dearest had
worn them.

In Dosia's world so far it was a matter of course that some people
were married--their household life went unnoticed; the fact had no
relation to her own intangible dreams or hopes; it was a condition
inherent to these elders, and not of any particular interest to her.
But Alice Wayne had been a girl like herself until now. This
matter-of-fact community of living forced itself upon her notice, as
if for the first time, as an absolutely new thing. The blood surged up
suddenly through the ice of her indifference; the room choked her.
George Sutton's neckties, not to speak of his shoes----!

"I'll have to be going," she interrupted precipitately, rising as she
spoke.

"Why,"--Alice Wayne stopped in the middle of a sentence, looking at
her in surprise,--"what's the matter? Aren't you well?"

"Yes, ye