The girl seemed in excellent spirits. He had noticed this with every recurring visit. Looking back upon her as she was when he had first known her, care-worn, pale, and quiet, she seemed now like a different person. Her glance sparkled with animation, her voice was full of that thrilling quality which some women's voices acquire in moments of happiness. She was a hundred times more fatally alluring than she had been in the beginning. He knew now that while he was with her his reason would always be in abeyance to his heart. "You seem to be in very good spirits," he said to her, not without a feeling of personal grievance that some cause of which he was ignorant should add so to her lightness of heart. "I am," she answered. "I'm in very good spirits. I'm quite happy. It's something lovely to feel so gay in your heart, isn't it?" "I don't know; maybe I've never felt so." "Oh, what nonsense!" she cried, looking at him reproachfully. "You, who have always had just what you wanted! I used to be afraid of you at first. It seemed rather awful to know anybody who'd always had things go exactly their way." He ignored the remark and said: "What's making you happy? Tell it to me, and then perhaps I'll get a little reflection of it." "I don't know that it's any one especial thing. Happiness comes when lots of little things fit nicely together. I never had one big thing in a lump to make me happy. I tell you what's doing a good deal toward it. Father and I are"--she made an instant's pause and then said--"doing so much better; financially, I mean. It's such a relief! You don't know." He turned and looked at her and met her eyes. They looked rather abashed, and then fell away from the scrutiny of his. "You don't think it queer of me to tell you that, do you?" she asked. "I tell you a good many things I wouldn't say to other people." "I am proud that you should have such confidence in me." "Well," she continued, with a quick sigh of relief, "we've been lately--that is, just about when we first knew you, and before that--really quite badly off. And my father being so sanguine, and having once been so differently situated, it's very hard on him--very hard." She paused, and he felt that she was looking at him for confirmation of her remark. "Very; I quite understand," he answered. "And, really, it was dreadful. It's trying for old people--so much anxiety. And then, just at the very worst, things suddenly brightened. Just about a month or six weeks ago the luck changed. You must have been the mascot." This time he looked at her, but her glance was averted. "Go on," he said, thinking that his voice sounded strange.