The season was at its height, and the Grangers found every available hour of their existence engaged in visiting and receiving visitors. There were so many people whom Lady Laura insisted upon introducing to her dear Clarissa--there was so much in the way of party-giving that Lady Laura wanted her sweet Mrs. Granger to do. Now it was a morning concert of my lady's planning, at which weird and wonderful-looking denizens of the Norseland--Poles, Hungarians, Danes, and Swedes--with unkempt hair and fierce flashing eyes, performed upon every variety of native instrument, or sang wild national songs in some strange language--concerts to which Lady Laura brought herds of more or less fashionable people, all of whom were languishing to know "that sweet Mrs. Granger." My lady had taken pains to advertise her share in the manufacturer's marriage. Every one belonging to her set knew that the match was her contriving, and that Clarissa had to thank the mistress of Hale Castle for her millionaire husband. She was really proud of her protegee's success, and was never tired of praising her and "that admirable Granger." That admirable Granger endured the accession of party-giving with a very good grace. It pleased him to see his wife admired; it pleased him still more to see her happy; and he was single-minded enough to believe her increased volatility a symptom of increased happiness. Whatever undefined regrets and dim forebodings there might be lurking in his own mind, he had no doubt of his wife's integrity--no fear of hidden perils in this ordeal of fashionable life. She would come to love him in time, he said to himself, trusting as blindly in the power of time to work this wonder for him as Clarissa herself had trusted when she set herself to win her father's affection. He believed this not so much because the thing was probable or feasible, as because he desired it with an intensity of feeling that blinded him to the force of hard facts. He--the man who had never made a false reckoning in the mathematics of business-life--whose whole career was unmarred by a mistake--whose greatest successes had been the result of unrivalled coolness of brain and unerring foresight--he, the hard-headed, far-seeing man of the world--was simple as a child in this matter, which involved the greater hazard of his heart.