ity or even her contempt for Mrs. Simpson's state of grace, she
made short work of special services and ladies' Bible classes. The
world was white with harvest, and Mrs. Simpson's chief activity was
a recreation society for shop girls. But it was something, it was
everything, to be uneasy, to be unsatisfied, and they would uplift
themselves in prayer, and Laura would find words of such touching
supplication in which to represent the matter that the burden of her
friend and hostess would at once be lessened by the weight of tears.
Mrs. Simpson had never wept so much without perceived cause for grief as
since Laura arrived, and this alone would testify, such was the
gentle paradox of her temperament, how much she enjoyed Miss Filbert's
presence.

Laura's room was a temple, for which the gardener daily gave up his
choicest blooms, the tenderest interest watched upon her comings
and goings, and it was the joy of both the Simpsons to make little
sacrifices for her, to desert their beloved vicar on a Sunday evening,
for instance, and accompany her to the firemen's halls and skating rinks
lent to the publishing of the Word in the only manner from which
their guest seemed to derive benefit. With all this, the Simpsons were
sometimes troubled by the impression that they could not claim to be
making their angel in the house completely happy. The air, the garden,
the victoria, the turbot and the whitebait, these were all that has been
vaunted, and even to the modesty of the Simpsons it was evident that the
intimacy they offered their guest should count for something. There were
other friends too, young friends who tried to teach her to play tennis,
robust and silent young persons who threw shy flushed glances at her in
the pauses of the games, and wished supremely, without daring to hint
it, that she would let fall some word about her wonderful romance--a
hope ever renewed, ever to be disappointed. And physically Laura
expanded before their eyes. The colour that came into her cheek gave her
the look of a person painted by Bouguereau; that artist would have
found in her a model whom he could have represented with sincerity.
Yet something was missing to her, her friends were dimly aware. Her
desirable surroundings kindled her to but a perfunctory interest in
life--the electric spark was absent. Mrs. Simpson relied strategically
upon the wedding preparations and hurried them on, announcing in May
that it was quite time to think about