it to press her glowing cheek against it,
saying passionately: "Oh, _how_ you understand!"

They were silent for a long time after that, while the train flew on,
through the gathering darkness of the late December afternoon, into the
night....

Georgiana had supposed that they were to go at once to the old home, for
she knew that Craig could not be long away at this time, and there was
much to do there. But she found that instead of changing trains in the
great city, sixty miles beyond which lay the home village, they were
leaving the station to be conveyed in a waiting car to a hotel.

"If you had been spending all these years in cities," was Craig's
explanation, "I should have felt like plunging at once with you into the
solitude. But as it is--well, I wondered if we shouldn't like to hear
some great music to-night. Do you feel as I do--that there are times
when nothing but music can speak for you?"

"But you," she said, "who live in the rush all the time----"

"There's no rush here for me," he answered. "Nobody is likely to know me
here; I can forget the whole world in the midst of the crowd with you
to-night. As for the music--I've been on short rations a good while
myself. I think we can feast together, don't you?"

It was all a fairy tale to Georgiana, that evening in the city. Her
college days had been spent in a small college town which, though it had
lain not many miles away from this same great metropolis, had seldom
seen her leave it for the privileges which richer girls enjoyed at every
week-end.

As for the superb hotel to which Craig took her, although she had seen
its impressive front, she had never so much as stood within its stately
lobby. Now she experienced all sorts of queer little thrills, as she
watched the accustomed ease with which her husband led her through the
brief details of arrival and noted with what deference he was received.
Evidently he had been expected, for there was no delay in the smooth
service which took them to an apartment reserved by wire, as Georgiana
gathered from a word she overheard.

He was quite right; a touch of this was what she needed, as a bird long
confined needs a chance to stretch its wings. To this girl, with vivid
life stirring in her pulses, the unaccustomed experience could but be a
delight, with such a companion to show her the way. Every detail had its
own fascination, such as might never come again when she should be more
wonted to such scenes. The