ay--I wouldn't have
promised to marry him. He does everything, every little thing I say. He
just seems to think of nothing else but to please me from morning until
night. And when I finally said I would marry him, why, Mrs. Cressler,
he choked all up, and the tears ran down his face, and all he could say
was, 'May God bless you! May God bless you!' over and over again, and
his hand shook so that--Oh, well," she broke off abruptly. Then added,
"Somehow it makes tears come to my eyes to think of it."

"But, Laura," urged Mrs. Cressler, "you love Curtis, don't you?
You--you're such a strange girl sometimes. Dear child, talk to me as
though I were your mother. There's no one in the world loves you more
than I do. You love Curtis, don't you?"

Laura hesitated a long moment.

"Yes," she said, slowly at length. "I think I love him very
much--sometimes. And then sometimes I think I don't. I can't tell.
There are days when I'm sure of it, and there are others when I wonder
if I want to be married, after all. I thought when love came it was to
be--oh, uplifting, something glorious like Juliet's love or
Marguerite's. Something that would--" Suddenly she struck her hand to
her breast, her fingers shut tight, closing to a fist. "Oh, something
that would shake me all to pieces. I thought that was the only kind of
love there was."

"Oh, that's what you read about in trashy novels," Mrs. Cressler
assured her, "or the kind you see at the matinees. I wouldn't let that
bother me, Laura. There's no doubt that '_J._' loves you."

Laura brightened a little. "Oh, no," she answered, "there's no doubt
about that. It's splendid, that part of it. He seems to think there's
nothing in the world too good for me. Just imagine, only yesterday I
was saying something about my gloves, I really forget what--something
about how hard it was for me to get the kind of gloves I liked. Would
you believe it, he got me to give him my measure, and when I saw him in
the evening he told me he had cabled to Brussels to some famous
glovemaker and had ordered I don't know how many pairs."

"Just like him, just like him!" cried Mrs. Cressler. "I know you will
be happy, Laura, dear. You can't help but be with a man who loves you
as 'J.' does."

"I think I shall be happy," answered Laura, suddenly grave. "Oh, Mrs.
Cressler, I want to be. I hope that I won't come to myself some day,
after it is too late, and find that it was all a mistake." Her voice
shook a littl