So, very solicitously the poems were wrapped up, and when they were tied and sealed and the parcel lay addressed upon the table, Mrs. Grey with Monica and Margaret came in. They were so sympathetic about the possible adventures in sight for that parcel, and Guy was so much his rather self-conscious self that the original relation between him and the family seemed perfectly restored. Pauline was glad to belong to them, and in her pride of Guy's achievement she basked in their simple affection, thrilling to every word or look or gesture that confirmed her desire of the cherished accord between Guy and the others. "Now I'm sure you'd both like to go and post Guy's poems," Mrs. Grey exclaimed. "Yes ... charming ... to go and post them yourselves." Pauline waited anxiously for a moment, because of late Guy had often seemed impatient of these permissions granted to him by her mother, but this afternoon he was himself and full of the shy gratitude that made her wonder if indeed nearly a year could have flown by since their love had been declared. Dusk was falling when they reached the post-office. "Will you register it, Mr. Hazlewood?" asked the postmistress. Guy nodded, and the parcel left their hands: in silence they watched it vanish into the company of other parcels that carried so much less: then back they came through the twilight to tea at the Rectory, both feeling as if the first really important step toward marriage had been taken. "You see," said Guy, "if only these poems of mine are well received, my father must acknowledge my right to be here, and if he once admits that, what barrier can there be to our wedding?" Pauline told him how much during the last month the distant prospect of their marriage had begun to weigh upon her, but now since that parcel had been left at the post-office, she said she would always talk of their wedding because that was such a much less remote word than marriage. "Come out to-night," said Guy suddenly. She put her hand on his arm. "Guy, don't ask me again." He was penitent at once, and full of promises never to ask her again to do anything that might cause an instant's remorse. They had reached the hall of the Rectory and in the shadows Pauline held him to her heart, suddenly caught in the flood of tenderness that a wife might have for a husband to whose faults she could be indulgent by the measure of his greater virtues kept, as it might be, for her alone. _January_