to death, and I want you to tell me what to
do."

He sat with her awhile longer, then went away, and thought of her all
night, and went back to her in the morning.

Loramer made him a visit soon after that. They sat up late together.
When they were separating at Loramer's door, he laid his arm across
Enfield's shoulder, and they looked into each other's eyes.

"Are you going to marry Cora Brainard, Lawrence?" he asked.

"Yes."

They continued to look at each other for a long breath.

"Are my eyes sound?" asked Enfield, but neither smiled.

"Yes, sound and true," answered Loramer, "but too deep for me."

The wedding came off a month later. Enfield had insisted upon Loramer
standing up with him. "This must make no difference between you and
me, Harry," he had said. Cora looked very pretty, and bore herself
with a demure dignity which Loramer could not but admire. He got
an idea of her then which he found hard to reconcile with his
recollections. Enfield himself discovered an unsuspected capacity
for enjoyment in her.

They came back from the wedding-journey, and she took command of his
house. And as they settled into the routine of home life and
occupations, Enfield began to think of carrying out certain plans
which he had had in mind.

Two or three months before his return to Cora, he had met a young lady
whom he had known slightly for some years, named Stella Grayland. She
was not strikingly beautiful, but of very pleasing appearance, fresh,
rosy, and intelligent. But the charm Enfield found in her was her
manner and what it suggested. Though entirely simple, her walking,
standing, sitting, speaking, were perfectly poised. In all her motions
and attitudes she made you think of some smooth and balanced mechanism
which, however it turned, or went, or stopped, was still in no danger
of going awry. She could stand still and sit still, and to see her do
either was good for the eyes. She was not fluent in speech, but when
she began you might be sure she would get to the end of what she set
out to say and stop when she got to the end. The simplest things took
a rhythmical quality in her mouth, and clung to the memory with an
agreeable tenacity.

Happy, thoughtful, modest, steadfast Stella Grayland had struck
Enfield as the reverse of Cora Brainard, and he found the secret of
the salient difference in the fact that Stella had had a thorough
training in one direction. Her father was a musician, and his daughter
h