she
loved Richard. Both believed both statements as they did the Word. And
yet Adam said the same thing when, wandering in Eden, he first met
lovely Eve, and every lover has said the same thing ever since. Every
fire boasts itself the hottest, every lover does the same. It is the
virtue of love that this is so, and none will object while Dorothy and
Richard work out their tinted destiny on lines of paradise. They had
been held apart; they were now together; rely upon it they said and
looked those softly tender, foolish, happy, precedental things which
have been best among the best lessons of the ages.

[Illustration: He Held Her Close]

Mr. Harley was pompous and patronizing the next evening when he met
Richard at dinner; but Mr. Harley was no less kind. Richard submitted
himself to Mr. Harley's patronage, for in it he recognized the
inalienable right of a father-in-law. Mrs. Hanway-Harley on that dinner
occasion did not pretend to the rugged, high good humor of her spouse,
and cultivated a manner at once blighted and resigned. But she was civil
even as she sighed, and he would have been a carper who complained.
Dorothy was beset of many shynesses now that she was brought with her
beloved into the presence of ones who were aware of her secret without
possessing sympathy therewith. Bess was there; but Bess did not weigh
upon her, since Bess applauded her love. Senator Hanway was there; but
"Uncle Pat" did not confuse her, since he cared nothing about her love.
It was Mr. Harley who permitted, and Mrs. Hanway-Harley who tolerated,
her heart's choice that set her cheeks aflame. Still it was good to see
Richard sitting across in the serpent stead of Storri--to see one whom
she worshiped where one whom she feared and loathed had been before! It
was twice good to think the present was immortal while the past was
dead. As Dorothy thought these things and sweetly blushed to think them,
you would have been reminded of a rose, if her blue eyes had not made
you remember violets, or by their clear, true, tranquil depths led you
away to muse on summer skies.

Richard bore the ordeal of that dinner manfully; ordeal it was, for he
felt himself on exhibition. He was rigorous to seem unruffled, and
defended his calmness by talking general politics with Senator Hanway.
Nor did he fall into the error of speaking of tempests in the stock
market; and as for the recreant Storri, no one named him. Bess might
have brought Mr. Fopling, for h