have much to do in
getting to know each other. Let's lose no time in beginning. Listen,
while I try to tell you what marriage means to me--and to find out what
it means to you."

It was a long talk, and, by the kindness of the fates which rule over
the irregular schedule of the men of Craig's profession, an
uninterrupted one. Long before it was over Georgiana learned many new
things concerning the man who was to be her husband, not the least of
which was his power of making others see as he saw, feel as he felt, and
believe, from first to last, in his absolute integrity of motive. And
when he told her what he thought he could do for her father if he should
have him under his eye during the coming winter, the period which was
always so long and trying for the sensitive frame of the invalid, whose
resisting powers were at their lowest when the winter winds were
blowing, she gave way and the question was settled.

But she did not give way in everything after all, nor did he ask her to
do so. When he suggested details of preparation, and she shook her head,
he smiled and told her it should all be as she wished. And when he said,
very gently, that he hoped she would let him provide her with the means
to buy whatever she might need, because everything that he had was hers
already, he took with a submission that was all grace her refusal to use
a penny of his until she should bear his name. If he made certain
reservations of his own as to what might happen when he should hold the
right, that did not show.

"So that I get you, dearest," he said at the end of the evening, just
before he let her go, "I am willing to take you in any sort of package
you may select for yourself. Personally it seems to me that jeweller's
cotton is the most appropriate background for you, if you won't have a
satin-and-velvet case!"

At which Georgiana laughed, and assured him that she was no real jewel,
only one of the secondary stones, and uncut at that. The answer she got
to this sent her off upstairs with thrilling pulses, to lie awake for a
long time, recalling his voice and look as he said the few suddenly
grave words which had given her a glimpse of his bare heart.

CHAPTER XXIV

MAGIC GOLD

The days which followed were to be remembered with peculiar delight all
Georgiana's life. Each morning, in Doctor Craig's own car, accompanied
by her father, she went shopping. Mr. Warne could not use his strength
in following her into the s