I am sure it was on that stream that Halcyone found retreat. In that sweet air, freed from any anxieties except to please her whose pleasure had become the sun of my life, I drank in health day by day and hour by hour. My farmhouse was only a half-mile or so across the fields to the home of Eleanor Leigh's old cousins with whom she was staying, and only the sidereal travellers followed that path so regularly as I. It was the same place where she had first met John Marvel--and Wolffert. She was even interested in my law, and actually listened with intelligence to the succulent details of Livery of Seisin, and other ancient conveyancing. Not that she yet consented to marry me. This was a theme she had a genius for evading. However, I knew I should win her. Only one thing troubled me. As often as I touched on my future plans and spoke of the happiness I should have in relieving her of the drudgery of a teacher's life, she used to smile and contest it. It was one of the happinesses of her life, she said, to teach that school. But for it, I would never have "put out her fire for her that morning." Was ever such ingratitude! Of course, I would not admit this. "Fate--no, Providence was on my side." And I took out my violets and showed them to her, telling her their history. They still retained a faint fragrance. And the smile she gave was enough to make them fresh again. But I, too, was friendly to the school. How could I be otherwise? For she told me one day that the first time she liked me was when I was sitting by the cab-driver holding the little dirty child in my arms, with Dix between my feet. And I had been ashamed to be seen by her! I only feared that she might take it into her head still to keep the school. And I now knew that what she took into her little head to be her duty she would perform. "By the way, you might take lessons in making up the fire," she suggested. [Illustration: I am sure it was on that stream that Halcyone found retreat.]