woman. Her straight, hard, little figure had
developed, her arms were rounded, her eyes were calmer. She had grown
taller, broader. Her former exquisite beauty was perhaps not quite so
delicate, so fine, so virginal, so charmingly angular and boyish. There
was infinitely more of the woman in it; and perhaps because of this she
looked more like Laura than at any time of her life before. But even
yet her expression was one of gravity, of seriousness. There was always
a certain aloofness about Page. She looked out at the world solemnly,
and as if separated from its lighter side. Things humorous interested
her only as inexplicable vagaries of the human animal.

"We heard the organ," said Laura, "so we came in. I wanted Mrs. Gretry
to listen to it."

The three years that had just passed had been the most important years
of Laura Jadwin's life. Since her marriage she had grown intellectually
and morally with amazing rapidity. Indeed, so swift had been the
change, that it was not so much a growth as a transformation. She was
no longer the same half-formed, impulsive girl who had found a delight
in the addresses of her three lovers, and who had sat on the floor in
the old home on State Street and allowed Landry Court to hold her hand.
She looked back upon the Miss Dearborn of those days as though she were
another person. How she had grown since then! How she had changed! How
different, how infinitely more serious and sweet her life since then
had become!

A great fact had entered her world, a great new element, that dwarfed
all other thoughts, all other considerations. This was her love for her
husband. It was as though until the time of her marriage she had walked
in darkness, a darkness that she fancied was day; walked perversely,
carelessly, and with a frivolity that was almost wicked. Then,
suddenly, she had seen a great light. Love had entered her world. In
her new heaven a new light was fixed, and all other things were seen
only because of this light; all other things were touched by it,
tempered by it, warmed and vivified by it.

It had seemed to date from a certain evening at their country house at
Geneva Lake in Wisconsin, where she had spent her honeymoon with her
husband. They had been married about ten days. It was a July evening,
and they were quite alone on board the little steam yacht the "Thetis."
She remembered it all very plainly. It had been so warm that she had
not changed her dress after dinner--she re