w how to tell you, Mrs. Harold, what has happened," began
Dr. Kirby. "I cannot explain it even to myself." The Doctor was
evidently very unhappy, and much disturbed.

He was in the sitting-room of the house on the river--a place not so
desolate after eight months of Margaret's habitation there. She could
not restore the blossoming vines to the stripped exterior, she could not
bring to life again the old trees; but within she had made a great
change; the rooms were fairly comfortable now, green blinds gave a
semblance of the former leafy shade.

But more than the rooms was the mistress of them herself transformed.
The change was not one of manner or expression; it was the metamorphosis
which can be produced by a complete alteration of dress. For Lanse had
objected to the simplicity of his wife's attire, and especially to the
plain, close arrangement of her hair. "You don't mean it, I know," he
said, "but it has an appearance of affectation, a sort of 'holier than
thou' air. I hate to see women going about in that way; it looks as if
they thought themselves so beautiful that they didn't mind calling
attention to it--with sanctimonious primness, of course; it's the most
conspicuous thing a woman can do."

"It's not a matter of principle with me; it's only my taste," Margaret
answered. "I have always liked simplicity in others, and so I have
dressed in that way myself."

"Alter it, then; with your sort of face you couldn't possibly look
flashy; and you might look prettier--less like a saint. There, don't be
enraged, I know you haven't a grain of that kind of pose. But it seems
to me, Margaret, that you might very well dress to please me, since I
regard you as a charming picture, keeping my hands off." And he laughed.

The next steamer that touched at the long pier (it was not two hours
afterwards) took from there half a dozen hastily written letters to
carry north.

"What in the world--why, I hardly _knew_ you," Aunt Katrina said, ten
days later, when her niece came over to East Angels to see her; now that
Lanse was better, she could come oftener.

"Lanse wished it," Margaret answered as she took her seat.

"And very properly. You certainly had a most tiresome way of having your
things made--so deadly plain; it looked as if you wanted people to think
you either very Quakerish or very miserable, I never knew which."

"If I had been miserable I shouldn't have paid so much attention to it,
should I? It takes a great