atherine about with an atmosphere of--if
possible--deeper tenderness than before; mingling sentiment with their
gaiety, and gaiety with their sentiment, and the delicate respect which
refrains from question with both.

One keenly bright October afternoon Richard Calmady called in the rue
de Rennes. It appeared he had come to Paris with the intention of
remaining there for an indefinite period. He called again and yet
again, making himself charming--a touch of deference tempering his
natural suavity--alike to his hostesses and to such of their guests as
he happened to meet. It was the fashion of fifty years ago to conduct
affairs, even those of the heart, with a dignified absence of
precipitation. The weeks passed, while Sir Richard became increasingly
welcome in some of the very best houses in Paris.--And Katherine? It
must be owned Katherine was not without some heartaches, which she
proudly tried to deny to herself and conceal from others. But
eventually--it was on the morning after the ball at the British
Embassy--the man spoke and the maid answered, and the old order
changed, giving place to new in the daily life of the pretty apartment
of the rue de Rennes.

About five months later the marriage took place in London; and Sir
Richard and Lady Calmady started forth on a wedding journey of the
old-fashioned type. They traveled up the Rhine, and posted, all in the
delicious, early summer weather, through Northern Italy, as far as
Florence. They returned by Paris. And there, Mrs. St. Quentin
watching--in almost painful anxiety--to see how it fared with her
recovered darling, was wholly satisfied, and gave thanks. For she
perceived that, in this case, at least, marriage was no legal,
conventional connection leaving the heart emptier than it found it--the
bartering of precious freedom for a joyless bondage, an obligation,
weary in the present, and hopeless of alleviation in the future, save
by the reaching of that far-distant, heavenly country, concerning which
it is comfortably assured us "that there they neither marry nor are
given in marriage." For the Katherine who came back to her was at once
the same, and yet another, Katherine--one who carried her head more
proudly and stepped as though she was mistress of the whole fair earth,
but whose merry wit had lost its little edge of sarcasm, whose sympathy
was quicker and more instinctive, whose voice had taken fuller and more
caressing tones, and in whose sweet eyes sat