o more
business marriage for me, if you please. There never was a man so in
love with his wife."

Suddenly she looked up and said fearfully, "James, he threatened you.
He said you'd never be safe a moment as long as I stayed here."

His answer was a peal of laughter. "I've done more than threaten him.
I've whipped him within an inch of his life, and it was the thought of
you that led me, in my rage, to spare his life. I'll tell you all--I'm
going to tell you everything now. How much trouble I might have saved
if I had told you my thoughts! What was there, Alida, in an old fellow
like me that led you to care so?"

Looking up shyly, she replied, "I think it was the MAN in
you--and--then you stood up for me so."

"Well, love is blind, I suppose, but it don't seem to me that mine is.
There never was a man so taken in at his marriage. You were so
different from what I expected that I began loving you before I knew
it, but I thought you were good to me just as you were to Jane--from a
sense of duty--and that you couldn't abide me personally. So I tried
to keep out of your way. And, Alida, dear, I thought at first that I
was taken by your good traits and your education and all that, but I
found out at last that I had fallen in love with YOU. Now you know
all. You feel better now, don't you?"

"Yes," she breathed softly.

"You've had enough to wear a saint out," he continued kindly. "Lie down
on the lounge and I'll bring your supper to you."

"No, please! It will do me more good to go on and act as if nothing
had happened."

"Well, have your own way, little wife. You're boss now, sure enough."

She drew him to the porch, and together they looked upon the June
landscape which she had regarded with such despairing eyes an hour
before.

"Happiness never kills, after all," she said.

"Shouldn't be alive if it did," he replied. "The birds seem to sing as
if they knew."

Jane emerged from the barn door with a basket of eggs, and Alida sped
away to meet her. The first thing the child knew the arms of her
mistress were about her neck and she was kissed again and again.

"What did you do that for?" she asked.

"You'll understand some day."

"Say," said Jane in an impulse of good will, "if you're only half
married to Mr. Holcroft, I'd go the whole figure, 'fi's you. If you'd
'a' seen him a-thrashin' that scamp you'd know he's the man to take
care of you."

"Yes, Jane, I know. He'll take care of me alwa