use.
Charity had sent the cook home and with her own hands served all
the beloved dainties of my long-ago childhood, trying to coax me
into forgetfulness. As you remember, Mate, dinner has always been
the happiest hour of the day in our small domain. Now? Well,
everything was just the same. The only difference was Jack. And
the half circle of bare tablecloth opposite me was about as
cheerful as a snowy afternoon at the North Pole. I wandered around
the house for awhile, but every time I turned a corner there was a
memory waiting to greet me. Now the merriest of them seemed to be
covered with a chilly shadow, and every one was pale and ghostly.
All night I lay awake, playing at the old game of mental solitaire
and keeping tryst with the wind which seemed to tap with unseen
fingers at my window and sigh,

"Then let come what come may
. . . . . .
I shall have had my day."

Is it possible, Mate, that my glorious day, which I thought had
barely tipped the hour of noon, is already lengthening into the
still shadows of evening?

It was foolish but, for the small comfort I got out of it, I turned
on the light and looked inside my wedding-ring. Time has worn it a
bit but the letters which spell "My Lady of the Decoration,"
spelled again the old-time thrill into my heart.

What 's the use of tying your heartstrings around a man, and then
have ambition slip the knot and leave you all a-quiver?

Far be it from me to stand in Jack's way if germ-stalking is
necessary to his success. Just the same, I could have spent
profitable moments reading the burial service over every microbe,
home-grown and foreign.

Really, Mate, I 've conscientiously tried every plan Jack proposed
and a few of my own. It was no use. That day-after-Christmas
feeling promptly suppressed any effort towards contentment.

At first there was a certain exhilaration in catching pace with the
gay whirl which for so long had been passed by for homier things.
You will remember there was a time when the pace of that same whirl
was never swift enough for me; but my taste for it now was gone,
and it was like trying to do a two-step to a funeral march. For
once in my life I knew the real meaning of that poor old
worn-to-a-frazzle call of the East, for now the' dominant note was
the call of love.

I heard it above the clink of the teacups. It was in the swish of
every silk petticoat. If I went to the theater, church or concert,