e. "You don't know how nervous I am these days. One minute
I am one kind of girl, and the next another kind. I'm so nervous
and--oh, I don't know. Oh, I guess it will be all right." She wiped her
eyes, and laughed a note. "I don't see why I should cry about it," she
murmured.

"Well, Laura," answered Mrs. Cressler, "if you don't love Curtis, don't
marry him. That's very simple."

"It's like this, Mrs. Cressler," Laura explained. "I suppose I am very
uncharitable and unchristian, but I like the people that like me, and I
hate those that don't like me. I can't help it. I know it's wrong, but
that's the way I am. And I love to be loved. The man that would love me
the most would make me love him. And when Mr. Jadwin seems to care so
much, and do so much, and--you know how I mean; it does make a
difference of course. I suppose I care as much for Mr. Jadwin as I ever
will care for any man. I suppose I must be cold and unemotional."

Mrs. Cressler could not restrain a movement of surprise.

"You unemotional? Why, I thought you just said, Laura, that you had
imagined love would be like Juliet and like that girl in 'Faust'--that
it was going to shake you all to pieces."

"Did I say that? Well, I told you I was one girl one minute and another
another. I don't know myself these days. Oh, hark," she said, abruptly,
as the cadence of hoofs began to make itself audible from the end of
the side street. "That's the team now. I could recognise those horses'
trot as far as I could hear it. Let's go out. I know he would like to
have me there when he drives up. And you know"--she put her hand on
Mrs. Cressler's arm as the two moved towards the front door--"this is
all absolutely a secret as yet."

"Why, of course, Laura dear. But tell me just one thing more," Mrs.
Cressler asked, in a whisper, "are you going to have a church wedding?"

"Hey, Carrie," called Mr. Cressler from the stoop, "here's J."

Laura shook her head.

"No, I want it to be very quiet--at our house. We'll go to Geneva Lake
for the summer. That's why, you see, I couldn't promise to go to
Oconomowoc with you."

They came out upon the front steps, Mrs. Cressler's arm around Laura's
waist. It was dark by now, and the air was perceptibly warmer.

The team was swinging down the street close at hand, the hoof beats
exactly timed, as if there were but one instead of two horses.

"Well, what's the record to-night J.?" cried Cressler, as Jadwin
brought the bays to a s