e."

"Yes, but they weren't cold and proud to their knights after they'd
promised to marry them," urged Page. "They loved them in the end, and
married them for love."

"Oh, 'love'!" mocked Laura. "I don't believe in love. You only get your
ideas of it from trashy novels and matinees. Girlie," cried Laura, "I
am going to have the most beautiful gowns. They're the last things that
Miss Dearborn shall buy for herself, and"--she fetched a long
breath--"I tell you they are going to be creations."

When at length the lunch bell rang Laura jumped to her feet, adjusting
her coiffure with thrusts of her long, white hands, the fingers
extended, and ran from the room exclaiming that the whole morning had
gone and that half her bureau drawers were still in disarray.

Page, left alone, sat for a long time lost in thought, sighing deeply
at intervals, then at last she wrote in her journal:

"A world without Love--oh, what an awful thing that would be. Oh, love
is so beautiful--so beautiful, that it makes me sad. When I think of
love in all its beauty I am sad, sad like Romola in George Eliot's
well-known novel of the same name."

She locked up her journal in the desk drawer, and wiped her pen point
until it shone, upon a little square of chamois skin. Her writing-desk
was a miracle of neatness, everything in its precise place, the
writing-paper in geometrical parallelograms, the pen tray neatly
polished.

On the hearth rug, where Laura had sat, Page's searching eye discovered
traces of her occupancy--a glove button, a white thread, a hairpin.
Page was at great pains to gather them up carefully and drop them into
the waste basket.

"Laura is so fly-away," she observed, soberly.

When Laura told the news to Aunt Wess' the little old lady showed no
surprise.

"I've been expecting it of late," she remarked. "Well, Laura, Mr.
Jadwin is a man of parts. Though, to tell the truth, I thought at first
it was to be that Mr. Corthell. He always seemed so
distinguished-looking and elegant. I suppose now that that young Mr.
Court will have a regular conniption fit."

"Oh, Landry," murmured Laura.

"Where are you going to live, Laura? Here? My word, child, don't be
afraid to tell me I must pack. Why, bless you."

"No, no," exclaimed Laura, energetically, "you are to stay right here.
We'll talk it all over just as soon as I know more decidedly what our
plans are to be. No, we won't live here. Mr. Jadwin is going to buy a
new house-