rides on horseback when the morning's work was over, she on Black
Bess, he on his own mare; the rompings and laughter in the cool woods;
the delight over the bursting of new blossoms; the budding of new
leaves and tendrils, and the ceaseless song of the birds! Were there
ever days like these!

And the swing and dash and freedom of it all! The perfect trust, each
in the other. The absence of all coquetry and allurement, of all
pretence or sham. Just chums, good fellows, born comrades; joining in
the same laugh, stilled by the same thoughts; absorbed in the same
incidents, no matter how trivial: the hiving of a swarm of bees, the
antics of a pair of squirrels, or the unfolding of a new rose. He
twenty-five, clean-souled, happy-hearted; lithe as a sapling and as
graceful and full of spring. She twenty-two, soft-cheeked as a summer
rose and as sweet and wholesome and as innocent of all guile as a
fawn, drinking in for the first time, in unknown pastures, the fresh
dew of the morning of life.

And the little comedy in the garret was played to the very end.

Each day my lady would dress herself with the greatest care in the
flowered satin and coax the stray curl into position, and each day
Adam would go through the ceremony of receiving her at the door with
his mahlstick held before him like a staff of state. Then, bowing like
a courtier, he would lead her past the yellow satin screen and big jar
of blossoms and place her in the high-back chair, little Phil acting
as page, carrying her train.

* * * * *

And so the picture was finished!

On that last day, as he stood in front of it, the light softened by
the screening sheet falling full upon it, his heart swelled with
pride. He knew what his brush had wrought. Not only had he given the
exact pose he had labored for--the bent head, the full throat, the
slope of the gently falling line from the ear to the edge of the
corsage, the round of the white shoulders relieved by the caressing
curl; but he had caught a certain joyous light in the eyes--a light
which he had often seen in her face when, with a sudden burst of
affection, she had strained little Phil to her breast and kissed him
passionately.

"I'm not so beautiful as that," she had said to Adam with a
deprecatory tone in her voice, as the two stood before it. "It's only
because you think I am, and because you've kept on saying it over and
over until you believe it. It's the gown and