Yes, that was pleasant," he said, cheerfully again, "And it was the
beginning of the kind of relation that I have held ever since to her
household. I am afraid I am there a good half of my time, and I believe
I dine there oftener than I do at home. I am quite on the footing of a
son, with her."

"There are some of the unregenerate, Glendenning," I made bold to say,
"who think it is your own fault that you weren't on the footing of a
son-in-law with her long ago. If you'll excuse my saying so, you have
been, if anything, too patient. It would have been far better for all if
you had taken the bit in your teeth six or seven years back--"

He drew a deep breath. "It wouldn't have done; it wouldn't have done!
Edith herself would never have consented to it."

"Did you ever ask her?"

"No," he said, innocently. "How could I?"

"And of course _she_ could never ask _you_," I laughed. "My opinion is
that you have lost a great deal of time unnecessarily. I haven't the
least doubt that if you had brought a little pressure to bear with Mrs.
Bentley herself, it would have sufficed."

He looked at me with a kind of dismay, as if my words had carried
conviction, or had roused a conviction long dormant in his heart. "It
wouldn't have done," he gasped.

"It isn't too late to try, yet," I suggested.

"Yes, it's too late. We must wait now." He hastened to add, "Until she
yields entirely of herself."

He gave me a guilty glance when he drew near the Bentley place and we
saw a buggy standing at the gate. "The doctor!" he said, and he hurried
me up the walk to the door.

The door stood open and we heard the doctor saying to some one within:
"No, no, nothing organic at all, I assure you. One of the commonest
functional disturbances."

Miss Bentley appeared at the threshold with him, and she and Glendenning
had time to exchange a glance of anxiety and of smiling reassurance,
before she put out her hand in greeting to me, a very glad and cordial
greeting, apparently. The doctor and I shook hands, and he got himself
away with what I afterwards remembered as undue quickness, and left us
to Miss Bentley.

Glendenning was quite right about her looking better. She looked even
gay, and there was a vivid color in her checks such as I had not seen
there for many years; her lips were red, her eyes brilliant. Her face
was still perhaps as thin as ever, but it was indescribably younger.

I cannot say that there were the materials of a merry