mily watching the light shining out from the window of Vivienne
LeMar's room. The blind was up and she could see Miss LeMar writing at
her table. Her profile was clear and distinct against the lamplight.

Estella reflected without the least envy that Miss LeMar was very
beautiful. She had never seen anyone who was really beautiful
before--beautiful with the loveliness of the heroines in the novels
she sometimes read or the pictures she had seen.

Estella Bowes was not pretty. She was a nice-looking girl, with clear
eyes, rosy cheeks, and a pervading air of the content and happiness
her life had always known. She was an orphan and lived with her uncle
and aunt. In the summer they sometimes took a boarder for a month or
two, and this summer Miss LeMar had come. She had been with them about
a week. She was an actress from the city and had around her all the
glamour of a strange, unknown life. Nothing was known about her. The
Boweses liked her well enough as a boarder. Estella admired and held
her in awe. She wondered what Spencer would think of this beautiful
woman. He had not yet seen her.

It was quite dark when he came. Estella opened the gate for him, but
he got out of his buggy and walked up the lane beside her with his arm
about her. Miss LeMar's light had removed to the parlour where she was
singing, accompanying herself on the cottage organ. Estella felt
annoyed. The parlour was considered her private domain on Wednesday
and Saturday night, but Miss LeMar did not know that.

"Who is singing?" asked Spencer. "What a voice she has!"

"That's our new boarder, Miss LeMar," answered Estella. "She's an
actress and sings and does everything. She is awfully pretty,
Spencer."

"Yes?" said the young man indifferently.

He was not in the least interested in the Boweses' new boarder.
Indeed, he considered her advent a nuisance. He pressed Estella closer
to him, and when they reached the garden gate he kissed her. Estella
always remembered that moment afterwards. She was so supremely happy.

Spencer went off to put up his horse, and Estella waited for him on
the porch steps, wondering if any other girl in the world could be
quite so happy as she was, or love anyone as much as she loved
Spencer. She did not see how it could be possible, because there was
only one Spencer.

When Spencer came back she took him into the parlour, half shyly, half
proudly. He was a handsome fellow, with a magnificent physique. Miss
LeMar s