She was never to be perfectly easy again. No woman ever is who loves. Some months, some days, at last a few hours and a few moments of happiness she was to have with which to balance the years of life with love and this pain. But ask her! She will tell you that they were worth more than the years. So many more women than we know are like that. Once when they were near the town, he looked at her happily and said: “I have not told you the news. It concerns you, too, now. I got a raise in salary yesterday.” “I am so glad,” she answered smiling. “Oh, I deserved it. I am making good. Father knows it,” he put in. “You do work hard,” she agreed. “But not near as hard as I mean to work now--for you,” he assured her. She tightened her fingers upon his in reply. “I mean to be a successful man, Helen, for you. You shall have everything.” “I need only you,” she answered. “The world is a wolf, did you know that?” She did not, she said. “Yes, it is; and the man that makes good in it has got to be a wolf too.” The lamb looked up at the wolf and smiled. She was merely noticing for the hundredth time how handsome he was, and wishing he had compared himself to a lion. She preferred to think of him as a lion. PART TWO PART TWO CHAPTER VIII Three days after the homing birds flitting about the old foundry on the river road witnessed the betrothal of George and Helen, Mrs. George William Cutter was seen to issue from her residence at five o’clock in the afternoon. It was barely possible at any time to do this on Wiggs Street without being observed by the secret eyes of your neighbors and exciting a purely private interest in where you were going. But it was absurdly impossible for Mrs. Cutter to have escaped on this occasion without exciting the liveliest curiosity, owing to the way she looked and her obvious destination, as compared with what she had been saying quite freely for the last three months to any one who wanted to know what her feelings and opinions were concerning a certain matter. Her hair was crimped, although this was Thursday and she never put it up on hairpins except on Saturday nights “for Sunday.” She wore a small, glistening, lavender straw hat wreathed in lilacs of that shade of pink grown only by milliners. A helpless thing securely pinned on, which somehow gave the impression of having involuntarily drawn back from her face in a mild flowerlike terror of this face. Any one seeing her might have understood the feelings of this hat. Her countenance seemed to burn, probably from the summer heat, possibly from some fiery emotion. Her red brown eyes spat sparks, her neck was bowed until she accomplished what Nature had not designed she should have, a wrinkle that made a thin double chin.