o conceited as that! No," she continued
ingenuously, "I feared that if I accepted him it would look, over
here, as if the home supply of husbands were of inferior quality; and
then we had such disagreeable discussions at the beginning, I simply
could not bear to leave my nice new free country, and ally myself with
his aeons of tiresome history. But it came to me in the night, a week
ago, that after all I should hate a man who didn't love his
fatherland; and in the illumination of that new idea Ronald's
character assumed a different outline in my mind. How could he love
America when he had never seen it? How could I convince him that
American women are the most charming in the world in any better way
than by letting him live under the same roof with a good example? How
could I expect him to let me love my country best unless I permitted
him to love his best?"

"You needn't offer so many apologies for your infatuation, my dear," I
answered dryly.

"I am not apologizing for it!" she exclaimed impulsively. "Oh, if you
could only keep it to yourself, I should like to tell you how I trust
and admire and reverence Ronald Macdonald, but of course you will
repeat everything to Willie Beresford within the hour! You think he
has gone on and on loving me against his better judgment. You believe
he has fought against it because of my unfitness, but that I, poor,
weak, trivial thing, am not capable of deep feeling and that I shall
never appreciate the sacrifices he makes in choosing me! Very well,
then, I tell you plainly that if I had to live in a damp manse the
rest of my life, drink tea and eat scones for breakfast, and--and buy
my hats of the Inchcaldy milliner, I should still glory in the
possibility of being Ronald Macdonald's wife,--a possibility hourly
growing more uncertain, I am sorry to say!"

"And the extreme aversion with which you began," I asked,--"what has
become of that, and when did it begin to turn in the opposite
direction?"

"Aversion!" she cried, with convincing and unblushing candor. "That
aversion was a cover, clapped on to keep my self-respect warm. I
abused him a good deal, it is true, because it was so delightful to
hear you and Salemina take his part. Sometimes I trembled for fear you
would agree with me, but you never did. The more I criticised him, the
louder you sang his praises,--it was lovely! The fact is,--we might as
well throw light upon the whole matter, and then never allude to it
again; an