art, and the choicest part, of her own life. The
instinct of maternity, never gratified in her by the possession of
children, asserted itself toward this radiant girl, whose being was so
much closer to hers than even a child's could be, whose life was so
wonderfully her own and yet not her own, that, in loving her, self-love
became transfigured and adorable. She could not have told whether the
sense of their identity or their difference were the sweeter.

Her delight in the girl's loveliness was a transcendent blending of a
woman's pleasure in her own beauty and a lover's admiration of it. She
had transferred to Ida all sense of personal identity excepting just
enough to taste the joy of loving, admiring, and serving her.

To wait upon her was her greatest happiness. There was no service so
menial that she would not have been glad to perform it for her, and which
she did not grudge the servants the privilege of rendering. The happiness
which flooded her heart at this time was beyond description. It was not
such a happiness as enabled her to imagine what that of heaven might be,
but it was the happiness of heaven itself.

As might be expected, the semi-sacredness attaching to Ida, as a being
something more than earthly in the circumstances of her advent, lent a
rare strain to Paul's passion.

There is nothing sweeter to a lover than to feel that his mistress is of
a higher nature and a finer quality than himself. With many lovers, no
doubt, this feeling is but the delusion of a fond fancy, having no basis
in any real superiority on the part of the loved one. But the mystery
surrounding Ida would have tinged the devotion of the most prosaic lover
with an unusual sentiment of awe.

Paul compared himself with those fortunate youths of antiquity who were
beloved by the goddesses of Olympus, and in whose hearts religious
adoration and the passion of love blended in one emotion.

Ever since that night when her heart had been melted by the story of his
love, Ida had treated him with the graciousness which a maiden accords to
an accepted lover. But far from claiming the privileges which he might
apparently have enjoyed, it seemed to him presumption enough and
happiness enough to kiss her dress, her sleeve, a tress of her hair, or,
at most, her hand, and to dream of her lips.

The dazed appearance, as of one doubtful of herself and all about her,
which Ida had worn the night when she was brought home, had now wholly
passed