As he let himself in, Bim came tearing to meet him. The firelight was still bright upon the hearth, and Brown sat down before it, leaning forward to look into the glowing coals with eyes which saw there splendid things. The dog came close and laid his head on Brown's knee and received the absent-minded but friendly caress he longed for. Also, with the need for speech, Bim's master told him something of what he was thinking. "The look of her, Bim, boy, in those simple clothes--why, she was never half so beautiful in the most costly things she ever wore. And she's mine--mine! She's coming here--next month, Bim, to be my wife! Can you believe it? I can't--not more than half. And yet, when I remember--remember-- "And it seemed hard to me, Bim--all this year--my life here. I thought I was an exile--I, with this coming to me! _O God--but You are good to me--good_! How I will work--how we will work--_we_--" He got up, presently, and as he stood on the hearth-rug, about to leave it for his bed, a whimsical, wonderful thought struck him. "I'll never have to borrow little Norah Kelcey any more, for the want of something to get my arms about. Instead--some day--perhaps--_O God, but You are good_!" * * * * * THE TIME OF HIS LIFE "Dot, do you remember Kirke Waldron?" Dorothy Broughton, daintily manipulating her breakfast grapefruit, her shapely young arm showing interesting curves through the muslin and lace of her morning gown--made by her own clever fingers--looked up at her brother Julius. He was keeping her company at her late and solitary breakfast, sitting casually on the arm of his brother-in-law's empty chair, his long legs crossed, his arms folded upon his chest. His bright eyes surveyed his sister as he spoke, from the crown of her carefully ordered hair to the tips of her white shoes--he could see them from his position at one side, and he observed that they were as white and as fresh as her gown. That was one of the things Julius heartily approved of in his pretty sister--her fastidiousness in such matters. He was fastidious himself to a degree; nothing more correct in its way than his own morning attire could have been imagined. "Waldron?" Dorothy repeated. "That tall, solemn boy who used to stumble over himself on his way to the blackboard?" "And then had the rest of the class looking like a set of dough-heads while he covered the blackboard with neat little figures that always came out right; a perfect shark at 'math.' Yes, he's the one. Five classes ahead of us then--fifteen now. We aren't in it, any of us, with Kirkie Waldron these days." "I've never heard nor thought of him since then," averred his sister. "Do you mean he's made something of himself? I should never have thought it."