ose. He felt that they symbolized the weakness
of most of humanity, and promised himself with a comfortable confidence
an easy and lifelong victory over such feeble adversaries. Of late,
business had been going even better than ever.

The days had begun to grow appreciably longer with the approach of
spring, and there had been several noons of an almost summer-like
mildness, but now, in spite of the fact that the sun was still shining,
the first chill of the late March evening dropped suddenly upon the
bare-raftered structure whose open windows and door-spaces offered no
barrier to the damp breeze. Hollister stirred from his pleasant reverie
and began to walk briskly about, inspecting the amount of work
accomplished since his last visit. He kept very close track of the
industry of his workmen and the competence of his contractor, and
Lydia's father admired greatly the way in which his future son-in-law
did not allow himself to be "done" by those past masters of the art. It
argued well for the future, Judge Emery thought, and he called Lydia's
attention to the trait with approval.

Before the wide aperture which was to be the front door, the owner of
the house stopped and looked eagerly out toward the road. It was near
the time when Lydia had promised to be there, and he meant to see her
and run to meet her when she first turned in upon the ground that was to
be her home. It was the first time that Lydia had happened to visit the
new house alone. Either her mother or Hollister's sister had accompanied
her on the two or three other occasions, but to-day she telephoned that
Mrs. Emery had been really out-and-out forbidden by Dr. Melton to get
out of bed for two or three days, and as for Madeleine--at this point
Madeleine had snatched the receiver from Lydia's hand and had informed
her brother that Madeleine was going to be busy with _her_ young man and
couldn't get off to chaperone people that had been as long engaged as he
and Lydia.

That was part of the bright color of the world to Paul--his sister's
recent engagement to their uncle's partner in the iron works, a very
prosperous, young-old bachelor of fifty-odd, whose intense preoccupation
with business had never been pierced by any consciousness of the other
sex until Madeleine had, as she proclaimed in her own vernacular, "taken
a club to him." It was a very brilliant match for her, and justified her
own prophecy concerning herself that she was not to be satisfied w