She paused, her lids drooping, an air of musing melancholy on her face. Then she raised her eyes and looked at him. “Who is there for them to marry here?” she asked. “Marry!”--the Colonel had not thought of that. “They’re very young for that yet, aren’t they?” he stammered. “Young? Yes, perhaps. But June is twenty now.” She let her head drop back on the cushions behind it, and turned it slightly away from him so that he could see her in profile. Her hair was dressed in the fashion of her youth, parted and drawn down sleekly over the tips of her ears. Seen thus, the emaciation of her cheeks partly concealed, her face caught him with its sudden look of familiarity. For a moment the veil of years was jerked back and he saw his old sweetheart. He gave a murmured exclamation and leaned nearer to her, a word of tenderness trembling on his lips. Simultaneously she turned toward him, absorbed in her own thoughts. “I was twenty-four when I married,” she said. “People then thought that was quite old.” He turned away his head, unable to reply, and she went on in her unconscious egotism. “I want them to marry. It’s the only life for a woman. And I have been so happy in my married life, always, from the first till now.” A slight smile touched her lips as her eyes, softened with memories, looked back over a life that love had ennobled. Suddenly she turned to him. For the first time in the conversation she seemed to transfer her interest from her own affairs to his. “You never married?” she said. “That was a pity. Life’s only half lived without those ties.” “Oh, Alice!” he answered with a groan, and rising he moved to the top of the steps. “I was mean to you that time, long ago,” she said behind him. “But that was all in the past. That’s all forgotten now--forgotten and forgiven, isn’t it?” For the moment he made no reply and she repeated in what seemed an absent tone, “Forgotten and forgiven. It’s all so far away now; such years ago. So much has happened in between. It’s like another life, looking back on it.” “Yes, all forgiven,” he said, “there’s no anger with real love.” “Of course not,” she agreed, “and time smooths away everything. Isn’t it pretty now, with the shadows lengthening out that way?” They looked over the expanse where the low sun’s rays were painting the already brilliant-hued landscape with a wild flare of color. The darkness of the oaks was overlaid with a golden gilding, the dry grass looked orange. “Have you seen the girls’ garden?” she asked. “They did it all themselves and they raise enough vegetables for us and some to sell. They sell the grapes, too. Last summer they made fifty dollars with their grapes.” So “the improvements” were of some practical good. The Colonel saw the word dancing in the air before him.