ervants
would impose on her, would run over her, and in this matter she found
new cause for wonder in her husband.

The servants, from the frigid butler to the under groom, adored Jadwin.
A half-expressed wish upon his part produced a more immediate effect
than Laura's most explicit orders. He never descended to familiarity
with them, and, as a matter of fact, ignored them to such an extent
that he forgot or confused their names. But where Laura was obeyed with
precise formality and chilly deference, Jadwin was served with
obsequious alacrity, and with a good humour that even livery and
"correct form" could not altogether conceal.

Laura's eyes were first opened to this genuine affection which Jadwin
inspired in his servants by an incident which occurred in the first
months of their occupancy of the new establishment. One of the
gardeners discovered the fact that Jadwin affected gardenias in the
lapel of his coat, and thereat was at immense pains to supply him with
a fresh bloom from the conservatory each morning. The flower was to be
placed at Jadwin's plate, and it was quite the event of the day for the
old fellow when the master appeared on the front steps with the flower
in his coat. But a feud promptly developed over this matter between the
gardener and the maid who took the butler's place at breakfast every
morning. Sometimes Jadwin did not get the flower, and the gardener
charged the maid with remissness in forgetting to place it at his plate
after he had given it into her hands. In the end the affair became so
clamourous that Jadwin himself had to intervene. The gardener was
summoned and found to have been in fault only in his eagerness to
please.

"Billy," said Jadwin, to the old man at the conclusion of the whole
matter, "you're an old fool."

And the gardener thereupon had bridled and stammered as though Jadwin
had conferred a gift.

"Now if I had called him 'an old fool,'" observed Laura, "he would have
sulked the rest of the week."

The happiest time of the day for Laura was the evening. In the daytime
she was variously occupied, but her thoughts continually ran forward to
the end of the day, when her husband would be with her. Jadwin
breakfasted early, and Laura bore him company no matter how late she
had stayed up the night before. By half-past eight he was out of the
house, driving down to his office in his buggy behind Nip and Tuck. By
nine Laura's own saddle horse was brought to the carriage po