d to the brim with
absorbed and adoring first love, could not help some secret resentment
that any other woman should be anything to her beloved or give him
any service. Her good sense told her that this was unreasonable, while
her respect and kindly feeling for Henrietta made her ashamed of it.
So she did her best to conceal it and in the effort overdid her
expressions of affection. Henrietta would have responded to these with
girlish ardor, for she liked Mildred and greatly admired her tall and
stately beauty, had she not felt some barrier just below the surface
that kept her as reserved, in all the little confidences that usually
go on between young women, as was Mildred herself. She did not even
know of the semi-engagement, to which Dr. and Mrs. Annister had not
yet given their full assent, that existed between Mildred and Felix
Brand, although she felt sure that the girl was whole-heartedly in
love with him.

As the weeks went on and autumn merged into winter, Henrietta
sometimes noticed a harried look upon her employer's countenance. She
wondered much about this, for he was winning success and honors in
ample measure. An international committee of artists and architects,
sitting in judgment upon the competitive designs submitted for a
memorial building to one of the country's heroes, had announced their
decision awarding the prize to Felix Brand. He had been made a member
of the municipal art advisory commission and a little later a national
society of architects had elected him to its presidency. There were
private commissions in plenty, enough to keep him and his assistants
busy. And, finally,--and Brand laughingly told his secretary that he
considered this the most signal success of his career--Mrs. Fenlow had
approved his last design for the country house she purposed to build
up the Hudson and had been moved to transports of enthusiasm over its
every detail.

In addition to these honors and successes, Henrietta knew that he was
making much money outside of his profession; that his operations in
stocks were nearly always profitable, that once or twice they had been
richly so, and that he had bought a large number of shares in a marble
quarry for whose product his designs often called.

So she marveled much within herself that he should so often look
careworn and show a furtive anxiety in his eyes and face when he had,
or was rapidly winning, almost every good thing that mortals count a
source of happiness