picture, her eyes gazing
into its depths. Adam kept perfectly still, completely charmed by her
dainty joyousness. He felt as if some rare bird had flown in which
would be frightened away if he moved a hair's breadth. Phil stood
apart watching every expression that crossed her happy face. He had
been waiting weeks for this moment.

"You haven't her eyes or her hair, Phil," she continued without
turning her head, "but you look at me that way sometimes. I don't know
what it is--she's happy, and she's not happy. She loved
somebody--that's it, she _loved_ somebody and her eyes follow you
so--they seem alive--and the lips as if they could speak.

"And now, Mr. Gregg, please show me every one of these beautiful
things." She had already, with her quick intuition, seen through
Adam's personality at a glance, and found out how thoroughly she could
trust him.

He obeyed as gallantly and as cheerfully as if he had been her own
age, pulling open the drawers of the cabinets, taking out this curio
and that, lifting the lid of the old Venetian wedding-chest that she
might herself pry among the velvets and embroideries; she dropping on
her knees beside it with all the fluttering joy of a child who had
come suddenly upon a box of toys; Phil following them around the room
putting in a word here and there, reminding Adam of something he had
forgotten, or calling her attention to some object hidden in a shadow
that even her quick absorbing glance had overlooked.

Once more she stopped before the portrait, her eyes drinking in its
beauty.

"Don't you love it, Mr. Gregg?"

"Yes, but I'm going to give it to your--to Philip."

"Oh! you know! do you? Yes, just say it out. We _are_ going to be
married just as soon as we can--next October is the very latest date.
I told father we were tired of waiting and he has promised me; we
would have been married this spring but for that horrid copper mine
that the deeper you go the less copper----"

"Oh, but Madeleine," protested Philip with a sudden flush in his face,
"that was some time ago; everything's all right now."

"Well, I don't know much about it; I only repeated what father said."

And then having had her fill of all the pretty things--some she must
go back to half a dozen times in her delight--especially some "ducky"
little china dogs that were "just too sweet for anything"; and having
discussed to her heart's content all the details of the coming
wedding--especially the part where A