hat had risen to haunt them
was laid. And if Julia felt a rush of blind gratitude and hope when they
sealed their new compact with a kiss, Jim was no less happy--everything
had come out wonderfully, and he loved Julia not less, but more than he
had ever loved her. The facts of her life, whatever they had been, had
made her what she was; now let them all be forgotten.

"Still, you are not sorry I told you, Jim?" Julia asked.

"No, oh, no, dearest! If only because you would have been sure to want
to do it sooner or later--it would have worried you. But now I do know,
Julie, you little Spartan! And this ends it. We'll never speak of it
again, and we'll never think of it again. You and I are the only two who
know--And we love each other. When all's said and done, it's I that am
not good enough for you, darling, not worthy to tie your little shoe
laces!"

"Oh, _you_!" Julia said, in great content.

The rest followed, as Julia herself said, like "a house-maid's dream."
Jim went home to tell his own people that night, and the very next
morning Julia, surprised and smiling, took in at the door a trim little
package that proved to be a blue-and-white Copenhagen teacup, with a
card that bore only the words "Miss Barbara Lowe Toland." Julia twisted
it in her fingers with a curious little thrill at the heart. The
"nicest" people sent cups to engaged girls, the "nicest" people sent
their cards innocent of scribbled messages. She, Julia Page, was one of
the "nicest" people now, and these were the first tentacles of her new
estate reaching out to meet her.

Notes and flowers from the Tolands and the warm-hearted Tolands
themselves followed thick and fast, and in a day or two notes and
cups--cups--cups--were coming from other people as well. The Misses
Saunders, the Harvey Brocks, the George Chickerings, Mr. Peter Coleman,
Mr. Jerome Phillips, Mrs. Arnold Keith, and Miss Mary Peacock--all had
found time to go into Nathan Dohrmann's, or Gump's, or the White House,
and pick out a beautiful cup to send Miss Julia Page.

Six weeks--five weeks--three weeks to the wedding, sang Julia's heart;
the time ran away. She had dreaded having to meet Jim's friends, and had
dreaded some possible embarrassment from an unexpected move on the part
of her own family, but the days fled by, and the miracle of their
happiness only expanded and grew sweeter, like a great opening rose.
Their hours together, with so much to tell each other and so much to