ly
association almost as complete in sympathy of mind and heart as anything
marriage could offer. There were none of the usual obstacles to incite
them to matrimony. They were never even formally engaged, so wholly did
they take it for granted that they should marry. It was so much a matter
of course that there was no hurry at all about it; and besides, so long
as they had it to look forward to the foreground of life was illuminated
for them: it was still morning. Mr. Morgan was constitutionally of a
dreamy and unpractical turn, a creature of habits and a victim of ruts;
and as years rolled on he became more and more satisfied with these
half-friendly, half-loverlike relations. He never found the time when it
seemed an object to marry, and now, for very many years, the idea had
not even occurred to him as possible; and so far was he from the least
suspicion that Miss Rood's experience had not been precisely similar to
his own, that he often congratulated himself on the fortunate
coincidence.

Time cures much, and many years ago Miss Rood had recovered from the
first bitterness of discovering that his love had become insensibly
transformed into a very tender but perfectly peaceful friendship. No
one but him had ever touched her heart, and she had no interest in life
besides him. Since she was not to be his wife, she was glad to be his
lifelong, tender, self-sacrificing friend. So she raked the ashes over
the fire in her heart, and left him to suppose that it had gone out as
in his. Nor was she without compensation in their friendship. It was
with a delightful thrill that she felt how fully in mind and heart he
leaned and depended upon her, and the unusual and romantic character of
their relations in some degree consoled her for the disappointment of
womanly aspirations by a feeling of distinction. She was not like other
women: her lot was set apart and peculiar. She looked down upon her sex.
The conventionality of women's lives renders their vanity peculiarly
susceptible to a suggestion that their destiny is in any respect
unique--a fact that has served the turn of many a seducer before now.

To-day, after returning from his drive with Miss Rood, Mr. Morgan had
walked in his garden, and as the evening breeze arose, it bore to his
nostrils that first indescribable flavor of autumn which warns us that
the soul of Summer has departed from her yet glowing body. He was very
sensitive to these changes of the year, and, obeyin