ing I want like every other Treadwell."

"Do you mean going to college?"

"No," said Susan, "I don't mean that," and into her calm grey eyes a new
light shone for an instant.

A clairvoyance, deeper than knowledge, came to Virginia while she looked
at her.

"You darling!" she exclaimed. "I never suspected!"

"There's nothing to suspect, Jinny. I was only joking."

"Why, it never crossed my mind that you would think of him for a
minute."

"He hasn't thought of me for a minute yet."

"The idea! He'd be wild about you in ten seconds if he ever thought----"

"He was wild about you ten seconds ago, dear."

"He never was. It was just his fancy. Why, you are made for each other."

A laugh broke from Susan, but with that large and quiet candour which
was characteristic of her, she did not seek to evade or deny Virginia's
suspicion. That her friend should discover her feeling for John Henry
seemed to her as natural as that she should be conscious of it
herself--for they were intimate with that full and perfect intimacy
which exists only between two women who trust each other.

"There goes Miss Willy," said Susan, looking through the window to where
the little dressmaker tripped down the stone steps to the street.
"Mother wants to have early supper, so I must be running away."

"Good-bye, darling. Oh, Susan, I never loved you as I do now. It will be
all right--I trust and pray that it will! And, just think, you will walk
out of church together at my wedding!"

For a minute, standing on the threshold, Susan looked back at her with
an expression of tender amusement in her eyes. "Don't imagine that I'm
unhappy, dear," she said, "because I'm not--it isn't that kind--and,
after all, even an unrequited affection may be simply an added interest
in life, if we choose to take it that way."

When she had gone, Virginia lingered over her wedding dress, while she
wondered what the wise Susan could see in the simple John Henry? Was it
possible that John Henry was not so simple, after all? Or did Susan,
forsaking the ancient tradition of love, care about him merely because
he was good?

For a week the hours flew by with golden wings, and at last the most
sacred day of her life dawned softly in a sunrise of rose and flame.
When she looked back on it afterwards, there were three things which
stood out unforgettably in her memory--the kiss that her mother gave her
when she turned to leave her girlhood's room for the last time;