were a striking pair as they stood together and plighted
their faith calmly: he big and strong, almost to the point of
burliness, and she slight, sweet and lissom. There was no nervousness
apparent in either, perhaps because there was such earnestness. And
then he carried her away from us.

They had not been long away, this newly wedded couple, when they
returned to the home he had prepared. As he remarked half grimly to
me, in comment on lost years, they had met so late in the nesting
season that time should not be wasted. Of that home more will be told
in other pages, but it is only of the two people I am talking now.

I noted a difference in their way when I first dined with them, which I
did, of course, as soon as they had returned. I had thought them very
close together before in thought and being, but I saw that there was
more. The sweet, sacred intimacy which marriage afforded had given the
greater fullness to what had seemed to me already perfect. But I was
one with much to learn of many things. And yet these two were to come
closer still--closer through a better mutual understanding and new
mutual hopes. It was long afterward when I understood.

It was after dinner one day, and in the sitting-room, which was a
library as well. They were going out that evening, but it was early
still, and he was leaning back in a big chair smoking the post-prandial
cigar, and she coiled upon a lower seat very near him, so near that he
could put his hand upon her head, and they were talking lightly of many
things. She looked up more earnestly at last.

"Will you ever tire of it, Grant?"

He laughed happily.

"Tire of what, Brownie?"

"Of this, of me, and of it all; will you never weary of the quietness
of it and want some change? You must care very much, indeed, if you
will not."

He spoke slowly.

"It seems to me that though we were to live each a thousand years, I
would never tire of this as it is. But, of course, it will not be just
this way. We could not keep it so if we would, and would not if we
could."

"Why should it change?"

He drew her close to him and placed his hand upon her face and kissed
her on the forehead.

"I shall be more in the fray again. I must be. You would not have
your husband a sluggard among men, and that will sometimes take me from
you, though never for long, because I'm afraid I shall be selfish and
have you with me when there are long journeys. And it will change,