An hour later, when the first lesson was over and he had gone back to his work, he carried with him a wonderful exhilaration--a feeling as if he had with a sudden effort burst the bonds that had held him to the earth. By the next day the elation vanished and a great heaviness came in its place, but for a single afternoon he had known what it was to thrill in every fiber with a powerful and pure emotion--an emotion beside which all the cheap sensations of his life showed stale and colourless. While the strangeness of this mood was still upon him he chanced upon Lila and Jim Weatherby standing together by the gate in the gray dusk, and when presently the girl came back alone across the yard he laid his hand upon her arm and drew her over to Tucker's bench beside the rose-bush. "Lila, I've changed my mind about it all," he said. "About what, dear?" "About Jim and you. We were all wrong--all of us except Uncle Tucker--wrong from the very start. You musn't mind mother; you musn't mind anybody. Marry Jim and be happy, if he can make you so." "Oh, Christopher!" gasped Lila, with a long breath, lifting her lovely, pensive face. "Oh, Christopher!" "Don't wait; don't put it off; don't listen to any of us," he urged impatiently. "Good God! If you love him as you say you do, why have you let all these years slip away?" "But you thought it was best, Christopher. You told me so." "Best! There's nothing best except to be happy if you get the chance." "He wants me to marry him now," said Lila, lowering her voice. "Mother will never know, he thinks, her mind grows so feeble; he wants me to marry him without any getting ready--after church one Sunday morning." Putting his arm about her, Christopher held her for a moment against his side. "Then do it," he said gravely, as he stooped and kissed her. And several weeks later, on a bright first Sunday in May, Lila was married, after morning services, in the little country church, and Christopher watched her almost eagerly as she walked home across the broad meadows powdered white with daisies. To the reproachful countenance which Cynthia presented to him upon his return to the house he gave back a careless and defiant smile. "So it's all over," he announced gaily, "and Lila's married at last." "Then you're satisfied, I hope," rejoined Cynthia grimly, "now that you've dragged us down to the level of the Weatherbys and-- the Fletchers? There's nothing more to be said about it, I suppose, and you may as well come in to dinner." She held herself stiffly aloof from the subject, with her head flung back and her chin expressing an indignant protest. There was a kind of rebellious scorn in the way in which she carved the shoulder of bacon and poured the coffee. "Good Lord! It's such a little thing to make a fuss about," said Tucker, "when you remember, my dear, that our levels aren't any bigger than chalk lines in the eyes of God Almighty." Cynthia regarded him with squinting displeasure.