py, dearest," he said, and as he kissed her he
laughed at the fates.

"I hope so--I pray so," she said, as she clung to him. "But--don't
laugh,--I can't bear it."

He patted her cheek.

"What a strange little girl you are!" he said. "I suppose I shouldn't be
mad about you if you weren't that way. Sometimes I wonder how many women
I have married."

She smiled at him through her tears.

"Isn't that polygamy, Hugh?" she asked.

It was all like a breathless tale out of one of the wonder books of
youth. So, at least, it seemed to Honora as she stood, refreshed with a
new white linen gown, hesitating on the threshold of her door before
descending. Some time the bell must ring, or the cock crow, or the fairy
beckon with a wand, and she would have to go back. Back where? She did
not know--she could not remember. Cinderella dreaming by the embers,
perhaps.

He was awaiting her in the little breakfast room, its glass casements
open to the garden with the wall and the round stone seat. The simmering
urn, the white cloth, the shining silver, the big green melons that the
hot summer sun had ripened for them alone, and Hugh's eyes as they rested
on her--such was her illusion. Nor was it quite dispelled when he lighted
a pipe and they started to explore their Eden, wandering through chambers
with, low ceilings in the old part of the house, and larger, higher
apartments in the portion that was called new. In the great darkened
library, side by side against the Spanish leather on the walls, hung the
portraits of his father and mother in heavy frames of gilt.

Her husband was pleased that she should remain so long before them. And
for a while, as she stood lost in contemplation, he did not speak. Once
she glanced at him, and then back at the stern face of the General,
--stern, yet kindly. The eyes, deep-set under bushy brows, like Hugh's,
were full of fire; and yet the artist had made them human, too. A dark,
reddish brown, close-trimmed mustache and beard hid the mouth and chin.
Hugh had inherited the nose, but the father's forehead was wider and
fuller. Hugh was at once a newer type, and an older. The face and figure
of the General were characteristic of the mid-century American of the
northern states, a mixture of boldness and caution and Puritanism, who
had won his battles in war and commerce by a certain native quality of
mind.

"I never appreciated him," said Hugh at length, "until after he died
--long after. Until now,