Marjorie Bartrand fell asleep in a state of the most pointed and virtuous indignation. Morning brought her back, as it brings back all of us, not to accidental emotion, but to the common habit of life. Her habit was to rise, the moment her eyes unclosed, open her window, and gladly welcome the new day. She did so now. Standing in her white night-dress, the elastic air blowing on her face, she looked across a corner of the orchard to the spot where Geoffrey, the crescent moon shining, plucked the briar roses above her reach. Away in the distant fields she saw the Reverend Andros, as he walked to and fro with firm slow step among his men. On her dressing-table lay an algebra paper, always her hardest work, which she intended resolutely to ‘floor’ before her tutor’s coming. How sweet life was, thought the little girl, how full of fine things that no man’s hand can take from us! Might it not be wisdom, even in a Mrs. Geoffrey Arbuthnot, as she had committed the error of marriage, to make the best of it--enjoy the sun that shone, the wind that blew, by day, and look upon sleep, not weeping, as the state for which nature designs our race at midnight! After a swim in the bay, a brisk run up to the manoir, Marjorie, with hunger befitting her years, kept her grandfather in excellent countenance at his breakfast, a solid country meal at which broiled fish, ham and eggs from the farmyard, home-made rolls and Guernsey buttered cake predominated. Then she went to the schoolroom, and, long before a figure she watched for rose above the moor’s horizon, had got the better of her paper. Her wits were at their brightest this morning. Geoffrey Arbuthnot, for the first time since they had known each other, threw out a few crumbs of praise when the reading closed. Crumbs of plain household bread, be it understood--no sugar, no spice--but that caused Marjorie’s heart to beat, the blood to leap swiftly into her mobile, all-confessing face. Geff watched her with admiration he sought not to hide. They had been working under the cedars, as was their custom in these fair summer forenoons. A solitary beam of sunlight pierced the thick and odorous shade. It fell full on Marjorie, looking more like a child than usual in an unadorned cotton frock, and with her silky raven hair spread out to dry, unconfined by comb or ribbon, over her shoulders. ‘The endowments of life certainly don’t go to those who need them most.’ Geff gave utterance to the truism with the want of preface that was his habit. ‘Many a pale-faced, hard-working village schoolmistress would have her path smoothened by possessing a tenth part of your brains. While for you----’ The words were leaving his lips in blunt fidelity. They were not well considered words, perhaps. Which of us can stand on mental tiptoe every hour of the twenty-four? But they were about as innocent of premeditated flattery as was ever speech offered by man to civilised woman.