He had forgotten all pompous dreams and the stilted prospects with which
he had aforetime hoped to beguile his wife. The man was plain and
simple now, a being very much on fire with an honest passion. He may
have left her love-cold, but he touched the sympathy which in a true
woman is love's nearest neighbour. Before she knew herself she had
promised, and had been kissed respectfully and tenderly by her delighted
lover. For a moment she felt something like joy, and then, with a
dreadful thought of the baselessness of her pleasure, walked slowly
homewards by his side.
The next morning Alice rose with a dreary sense of the irrevocable. A
door seemed to have closed behind her, and the future stretched before
her in a straight dusty path with few nooks and shadows. This was not
the blithe morning of betrothal she had looked for. The rapturous
outlook on life which she had dreamed of was replaced by a cold and
business-like calculation of profits. The rose garden of the "god
unconquered in battle" was exchanged for a very shoddy and huckstering
paradise.
Mrs. Andrews claimed her company all the morning, and with the
pertinacity of her kind soon guessed the very obvious secret. Her
gushing congratulations drove the girl distracted. She praised the good
Stocks, and Alice drank in the comfort of such words with greedy ears.
From one young man she passed to another, and hung lovingly over the
perfections of Mr.
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