"But all that will be so much nicer in the summer," he goes on, reflectively. "The children can run out of doors. Yes, we will have the Latimers and any one else we choose, and be really like civilized people. I hope Gertrude can get back." "Oh, I do hope so!" she re-echoes. The next morning he takes Violet and Cecil out for a long drive, way up the river. It is the last day of March, and there is a softness in the air, a bluish mist over the river, and a tender gray green on the hillsides. The very crags seem less rugged and frowning. It is really spring! "Oh, how delightful it will be!" she exclaims. "Are there not wild flowers about here? We can have some lovely rambles gathering them. And there will be the gardens, and the whole world growing lovelier every day." They stop at a hotel and have a dinner, which they enjoy with the appetites of travellers. Just above there is a pretty waterfall, much swollen by the spring rains, then there is a high rock with a legend, one of the numerous "Lover's Leap," but the prospect from its top is superb, so they climb up and view the undulating country, the blue, winding river, the nooks and crags, dotted here and there by cottages that seem to hang on their sides, a slow team jogging round, or fields being ploughed. All the air is sweet with pine and spruce, and that indescribable fragrance of spring. Floyd Grandon is so happy to-day that he almost wishes he had a little world of his own, with just Violet and Cecil. If it were not for this wretched business; but then he is likely to get it off his hands some time, and as it is turning out so much better than he once feared, he must be content. If there were many days like this! If husband and wife could grow into each other's souls, could see that it was not separate lives, but one true life that constituted marriage; but she does not know, and does her best in sweet, brave content; and he is ignorant of the intense joy and satisfaction the deeper mutual love might bring. He is a little afraid. He does not want to yield his whole mind and soul to any overwhelming or exhausting passion, and yet he sometimes wonders what Violet would be if her entire nature were stirred, roused to its utmost. But the morrow brings its every-day cares and duties. Floyd is wanted in the city. He drops into madame's and finds her in the midst of plans. She is to give an elegant little musicale about the 10th, and he must surely bring his wife, who is to stay all night. She, madame, will hear of nothing to the contrary. No woman was ever more charming in these daintily arbitrary moods, and he promises. All the singers will be professional, there will be several instrumental pieces, and the invitations are to be strictly limited.