e
said, took it philosophically; and when Austen went up to see him upon
this matter, he shook hands with his future son-in-law,--and they agreed
to disagree. And beyond this it is safe to say that Mr. Flint was
relieved; for in his secret soul he had for many years entertained a
dread that Victoria might marry a foreigner. He had this consolation at
any rate.

His wife denied herself for a day to her most intimate friends,--for it
was she who had entertained visions of a title; and it was characteristic
of the Rose of Sharon that she knew nothing of the Vanes beyond the name.
The discovery that the Austens were the oldest family in the State was in
the nature of a balm; and henceforth, in speaking of Austen, she never
failed to mention the fact that his great-grandfather was Minister to
Spain in the '30's,--a period when her own was engaged in a far different
calling.

And Hilary Vane received the news with a grim satisfaction, Dr. Tredway
believing that it had done more for him than any medicine or specialists.
And when, one warm October day, Victoria herself came and sat beside the
canopied bed, her conquest was complete: he surrendered to her as he had
never before surrendered to man or woman or child, and the desire to live
surged back into his heart,--the desire to live for Austen and Victoria.
It became her custom to drive to Ripton in the autumn mornings and to sit
by the hour reading to Hilary in the mellow sunlight in the lee of the
house, near Sarah Austen's little garden. Yes, Victoria believed she had
developed in him a taste for reading; although he would have listened to
Emerson from her lips.

And sometimes, when she paused after one of his long silences to glance
at him, she would see his eyes fixed, with a strange rapt look, on the
garden or the dim lavender form of Sawanec through the haze, and knew
that he was thinking of a priceless thing which he had once possessed,
and missed. Then Victoria would close the volume, and fall to dreaming,
too.

What was happiness? Was it contentment? If it were, it might endure,
--contentment being passive. But could active, aggressive, exultant joy
exist for a lifetime, jealous of its least prerogative, perpetually
watchful for its least abatement, singing unending anthems on its
conquest of the world? The very intensity of her feelings at such times
sobered Victoria--alarmed her. Was not perfection at war with the world's
scheme, and did not achievement spring