d him--as irresistibly as the rose above her head was
drawn to the wind--and smiled.

"Oh, Sheila!--_when you look at me like that_!"

And then Ted's face was against her breast, his arms around her. She
would never weep again--for _this_ was _life_!

CHAPTER VII

Sheila had been married several months before she ceased to expect a
miracle.

She had believed that moment of high rapture when, with Ted's face
hidden against her breast, she had seemed to grasp life itself in her
ardent young hands, to be but the forerunner of greater moments--of
raptures and fulfillments compared to which the first awakening would
appear no more than a pale shadow of joy.

Marriage, in some way mysterious and beautiful, would surely alter the
world for her; nay, more, would transmute her own nature into something
stronger, richer, happier, a wedded nature, wedded in its lightest
moods, its deepest fastnesses. She would wear Ted's ring upon her very
soul, and her soul would thereby be changed and glorified.

Other wives--all wives, indeed, who marry at the dictates of their
hearts--expect as much. It is the way of women to dream and hope above
the earth's level, and now and then, in a rarely perfect mating or in
motherhood, their dreams come true. But oftenest they wait as Sheila
waited--unrewarded. And after awhile they return contentedly to the
lowland of everyday reality--where many paths are pleasant and their
fellow travelers, though not knights errant, are usually faithful and
kind.

This, after a few months, Sheila did, too. By that time she had begun
to regard the first moment of acknowledged love as unique, one from
which she had no right to ask more than itself. It was enough to have
had it. It _had_ been life--of that she was still convinced--but life
at its high tide. And the very existence of every day--of tranquil
affection and homely duty--was none the less life, too, and good after
its own fashion.

So, missing the miracle, she set to work to discover a miracle in what
she had; to find exquisite meanings in the fire upon her wedded hearth
while her wedded soul remained cold and virginal. And she had the
better chance to warm herself beside that fire because it never
occurred to her that Ted might be in the least responsible for its
limitations.

About her choice of a husband--or rather, her acceptance of the husband
whom fate had chosen for her--she had no misgivings.

"Oh, Sheila, are you sure