for the best. This assurance was the more solacing because
it was the result, not of external evidence, but of that instinctive
decision of temperament which breeds the deepest conviction of all.

"Love is the only thing that really matters, isn't it, mother?"

"A pure and noble love, darling. It is a woman's life. God meant it so."

"You are so good! If I can only be half as good as you are."

"No, Jinny, I'm not really good. I have had many temptations--for I was
born with a high temper, and it has taken me a lifetime to learn really
to subdue it. I had--I have still an unfortunate pride. But for your
father's daily example of humility and patience, I don't know how I
could have supported the trials and afflictions we have known. Pray to
be better than your mother, my child, if you want to become a perfect
wife. What I am that seems good to you, your father has made me----"

"And father says that he would have been a savage but for you."

A tremor passed through Mrs. Pendleton's thin bosom, and bending over,
she smoothed a fine darn in the skirt of her alpaca dress.

"We have loved each other," she answered. "If you and Oliver love as
much, you will be happy whatever comes to you." Then choking down the
hard lump in her throat, she took up her leather key basket from the
little table beside the bed, and moved slowly towards the door. "I must
see about supper now, dear," she said in her usual voice of quiet
cheerfulness.

Left to herself, Virginia opened the worn copy of the prayer-book, which
she kept at her bedside, and read the marriage service from beginning to
end, as she had done every day since her engagement to Oliver. The words
seemed to her, as they seemed to her mother, to be almost divine in
their nobility and beauty. She was troubled by no doubt as to the
inspired propriety of the canonical vision of woman. What could be more
beautiful or more sacred than to be "given" to Oliver--to belong to him
as utterly as she had belonged to her father? What could make her
happier than the knowledge that she must surrender her will to his from
the day of her wedding until the day of her death? She embraced her
circumscribed lot with a passion which glorified its limitations. The
single gift which the ages permitted her was the only one she desired.
Her soul craved no adventure beyond the permissible adventure of being
sought in marriage. Love was all that she asked of a universe that was
overflowing with manifo