She hesitated, fingering the leaves of her book. She turned her head to one side; the leaves swished softly as they swept past her broad thumb; the corners of her mouth curled in a tremulous smile; the fingers of her other hand moved in an unconscious caress across her warm cheek; she remembered afterward that the band across the bay on the long pier, where the races were, was playing “Annie Laurie,” and that the odor of wild musk, growing outside her window in a box, was borne in, sweet and heavy, by the sea winds. It was the one perfect moment of Mrs. Mansfield’s life—in which there had been no moments that even approached perfection; in which there had been no hint of poetry—only dullest, everyday prose. She had married because she had been taught that women should marry; and Mr. Mansfield had been a good husband. She always said that; and she did not even know that she always sighed after saying it. Her regard for Mr. Grover was the poetry—the wine—of her hard, frontier life. Never before that summer had she stood and listened to the message of the meadow-lark with a feeling of exaltation that brought tears to her eyes; or gone out to gather wild pink clover with the dew on it; or turned her broad foot aside to spare a worm. Not that Mr. Grover ever did any of these things; but that love had lifted the woman’s soul and given her the new gift of seeing the beauty of common things. No one had guessed that there was a change in her heart, not even Mariella. It was well that Mrs. Mansfield prolonged that perfect moment. When she did lift her eyes there was a kind of appealing tenderness in them. “I guess I did,” she said. “Well, then,”—Mr. Grover drew a breath of relief—“you might’s well say I can have her. I want it all understood before she gets home. I want to stop her runnin’ with that Walton. Once or twice I’ve been afraid you’d just as leave she’d marry him as me. I don’t like to see girls gallivant with two or three fellows.” Mrs. Mansfield sat motionless, looking at him. Her eyes did not falter; the smile did not wholly vanish from her face. Only the blood throbbed slowly away, leaving it paler than Mariella’s had been that morning. She understood her mistake almost before his first sentence. While he was speaking her thoughts were busy. She felt the blood coming back when she remembered what she had said to Mariella. If _only_ she had not spoken! “Well,” she said, calmly, “have you said anything to Mariella?” “Yes, I have; lots o’ times. An’ I know she likes me; but she’s some flirtish, and that’s what I want to put a stop to. So, with your permission, I’ll have a talk with her to-night.” “I’d like to talk to her first myself.” Mrs. Mansfield looked almost stern. “But I guess it’ll be all right, Mr. Grover. If you’d just as soon wait till to-morrow, I’d like to be alone and make up my mind what to say to her.” Mr. Grover got up and shook hands with her awkwardly. “I’ll make her a good husband,” he said, earnestly.