She spoke as if the day were sanctified by his coming. She was a woman whose beauty was rare both in type and in degree. Small, there was that about her which caused the defect, if defect it was, to go unnoticed. She moved with a grace and freedom which dignified her every gesture. The eye followed her with continual joy. Every change of attitude was a fresh delight. Whether in movement or repose she suggested the physical side of life at its highest and its best; she seemed charged, to the finger-tips, with so delicious a vitality. The thing about her face which struck one most was its expression of perfect innocence. One wondered if such a being ever could grow old. One felt sure that she would face whatever fortune fate might send her with the same quaint illuminating smile, and that nothing would ever shake her faith in the good that was to be. Mr. Merrett had a child on either knee. His wife was kneeling beside his chair, regarding him with a rapturous affection which it was curious to contemplate. A man's capacity to win and retain a woman's love is by no means necessarily dependent on his moral qualities. Which is fortunate for some of us. 'James,' she whispered, from the post of vantage her head occupied upon his shoulder, 'when you come home the whole world seems somehow different.' Her tongue betrayed her. Her speech was hardly that of an educated woman, and yet her voice was such a sweet one, and her manner so naturally refined, that one could not doubt that it needed but little to make her command over the King's English greater than it was. 'Seems different, doesn't it? Now that's strange. Do you think, having come, if I stayed it would keep on seeming different?' 'O James, if you would stay--a week.' One could not but perceive that her sentence had changed between its beginning and its end. He chose to construe the alteration in a fashion of his own. 'A week! You don't think it would keep on seeming different if I stayed longer than that?' 'If you--if you'd only try.' Her voice dropped; as if alarmed at her own daring. This was one of those foolish women who are fearful of saying anything which may be contrary to the wishes of the man they love. 'I'm going to try; if try's the word which adequately expresses the situation. I'm going to stay more than a week. I'm going to stay for ever.' She looked up at him with an expression of singular amazement. 'James, do you mean--that you've come--to stay with us--for good?' 'That's it; for good. I like your word better than mine. Then we'll see how long the world will keep on seeming different.' 'It will keep on seeming different for ever. Stay with us always? James, you--you don't know what that means.' Back went her head upon his shoulder, and she was still. He put up his hand to stroke her hair. 'It's in this way. After prolonged and arduous toil----' He cleared his throat; as if the words stuck a little. She mistook the cause of his hesitation.