It was an unusual thing too for her to be dressed so nicely for an afternoon at home. She had, I knew, many beautiful dresses, and had told me sometimes of the elaborate toilets of the city, but had heretofore donned as an afternoon dress the gray mohair she wore when she came, and a light blue scarf over her shoulders was the only color she wore about her. The weather was warm but the heat was never oppressive to her--her blood, she said, had never felt as it were really warm since the night her husband died. On this particular afternoon, we were talking principally of Hal, and my eyes unconsciously riveted their gaze on the folds of her dress hanging so gracefully about her, and trailing softly on the carpet if moved. I wondered too a little at it, for I noticed it to be quite long in front as well as behind. The afternoon was far spent, and it was nearly time for Ben and father to come in to supper. Before she made any allusion to her extra toilette, extra for our little home, and nodding at me as I raised my eyes from the soft blue folds to meet the light of the blue eyes above them, she said: "How does my dress please Mademoiselle Emily?" "Oh!" I replied, "I never saw so beautiful a dress." She smiled one of her bright quick smiles as if some fancy struck her, and said, laying her hand over the bow at her heart, "And this too?" "Both are beautiful in my eyes," I said, "and so suited to you Clara." After supper we were going to take a walk, and Clara went to her room, doffed the blue Foulard and came down in the grey mohair. We had a beautiful walk out from under the shade of the o'erarching chestnut trees before our door, along the grassy highway leading to the upper meadow, over the smooth newly-cut field on to the edge of the birch woods beyond. There we rested quiet, coming back when the moon rose over the hills and the stars hung out like lanterns on our track. We talked. Clara had her seasons of soul-talk as she called it, and that night she read me a full page of her inner self the purport of which I shall never forget. The more she revealed to me of herself the more I loved her, and her words suggested thoughts that filled my soul--thoughts which, in depths within myself I had never dreamed of, found and swept a string that ere long broke its sweet harmonies on my spirit. I seemed, all at once, to develop in spiritual stature and to have become complex to myself. When we said "good night" to the folks below and went up stairs together, Clara caught my hand and said,