"Yes, I've noticed that. Poor old man! Well, we can't help it. These aren't matters for outsiders, my sweetheart--you know that even better than I do." "Yes, I know, but I'm so angry with that little minx! See how she has estranged him from us. He hardly ever comes here now." "Oh, well, I don't think that we ought to put all the blame of that on Nannie. A man isn't apt to run around after he's married. Look at me--you can hardly get me out at all, and I used to be a great gad-about." "I dare say, sir, I dare say," said Constance, nodding her head as one who knows. Randolph laughed. "I certainly was over at your house often enough," he said, "but now that I've run the race and won the prize, I can stay at home and enjoy it." "Well, I wish poor Steve had a home to enjoy," murmured Constance as a last word. As a matter of course this conversation and the reflections which followed it did not prepare Constance to give Nannie a very cordial greeting when she came over that day. Had she known Nannie's state of mind; had she guessed that the child-wife looked up to her and was so ready to be influenced by her, the older woman, she would have done altogether differently. It is the lack of this very knowledge that makes much of life a mere blundering about in the dark. She received her coolly, and Nannie was sensitive enough to feel this so deeply that Randolph's hearty welcome could but partially heal the hurt. This pain, however, was not without its resultant benefit, although the lesson for which it opened the way might have come more gently. Stung to the quick, aching with loneliness, and with a yearning which she did not understand, the young wife was roused as never before and her eyes opened to things heretofore unseen. She noticed the orderliness of the home she was in, its air of thrift and good management, and its artistic beauty. Nor was this all, for the best of a home is that which is too elusive, too subtile to remain under any of these heads, and this indefinite something attracted and touched Nannie to-day. Fog and mist, cloud and rain had softened the soil into which these seeds fell. Pain is a strong note in the prelude to life. It was characteristic of Nannie's crude resentful type of pride that she prolonged her stay at Constance's, even though she realized she was unwelcome. She would not allow any one the satisfaction of seeing that she felt hurt.