or the first time she paid an
honest reverence to the nobility of character. And now she despised her
own petty, shallow thoughts and beliefs. Her lofty despising of the
world and the vain and selfish people therein had been only a kind of
scornful regret for the treasures wrested from her, the glitter of
fashion, the gauds of society. Fred had made a braver stand than she. He
had not sought to poise himself on the easy, graceful rounds of past
promises, and to dream futile weakening dreams, nor shut himself up in
morbid isolation.

After all, how little the great world really cared! It was the few
friends, the small circle, the near influences, that were of importance.
And when she found that here in cultured, delightful Beverly, she was
sought out as an entertaining guest, that she had not lost caste because
the great bubble of fortune had shivered into fragments, that dressing
and shopping and flirting were not the highest of human enjoyments, she
came to a very rational frame of mind, and to a certain extent enjoyed
her life. But nature had not made her a teacher of children, and never
does such women, until, informed by that highest of all love, they teach
their own.

She came back beautiful, strong, and brave, resolute to dare any thing.
She dazzled them at the little tea-table by her swift, easy animation,
her brilliancy, the color that went and came, the smiles that were like
rippling billows over a sea. And Sylvie's heart went down like lead,
though it was such a fair picture. "For now," she thought, "Jack will
never dare to love her!"

Perhaps not, if he had to begin now. But the love was in him and of him,
and would be hers all his life long, whether she took it or no.

He did not come for a day or two. She wondered a little: she even
laughed lightly at her own past fear, the shadow she had conjured up,
the warm blood ran so healthily through her veins now.

He sauntered in one morning to find her cutting roses with Sylvie, the
two the fairest flowers in all the garden. He was in no wise abashed at
this vision of loveliness: if she had a dower of beauty, he had his
unstained manhood.

They chatted and laughed. Sylvie pinned a pale bud and geranium-leaf in
his coat. He held out his hand to Irene with a curious little gesture.
She had two or three great royal purple pansies clasped lightly in her
fingers.

She meant to refuse courteously, but their eyes met. Was it the old
spell working?

Surely, sur