There was so much on both sides to be told; and to be told over again because only half had been told; and there were so many hopes and experiences to be exchanged; so many opinions to compare, and to rejoice over because they were alike on many essentials. Then there were the rooms to be gone through, and Gordon’s pictures and favorite books to look at and talk about, and plans for the future to be touched upon--just barely touched upon. The apartment would do until they could look about and get a house, Gordon said, his heart swelling with the proud thought that at last he would have a real home, like his other married friends, with a real princess to preside over it. Then Celia had to tell all about the horror of the last three months, with the unpleasant shadows of the preceding years back of it. She told this in the dusk of evening, before Henry had come in to light up, and before they had realized that it was almost dinner-time. She told it with her face hidden on her husband’s shoulder, and his arms close about her, to give her comfort at each revelation of the story. They tried also to plan what to do about George Hayne; and then there was the whole story of Gordon’s journey and commission from the time the old chief had called him into the office until he came to stand beside her at the church altar and they were married. It was told in careful detail with all the comical, exasperating and pitiful incidents of white dog and little newsboy; but the strangest part about it all was that Gordon never said one word about Julia Bentley and her imaginary presence with him that first day, and he never even knew that he had left out an important detail. Celia laughed over the white dog and declared they must bring him home to live with them; and she cried over the story of the brave little newsboy and was eager to visit him in New York, promising herself all sorts of pleasure in taking him gifts and permanently bettering his condition; and it was in this way that Gordon incidentally learned that his wife had a fortune in her own right, a fact that for a time gave him great uneasiness of mind until she had soothed him and laughed at him for an hour or more; for Gordon was an independent creature and had ideas about supporting his wife by his own toil. Besides it seemed an unfair advantage to have taken a wife and a fortune as it were unaware. But Celia’s fortune had not spoiled her, and she soon made him see that it had always been a mere incident in her scheme of living; comfortable and pleasant incident to be sure, but still an incident to be kept always in the background, and never for a moment to be a cause for self-gratulation or pride.