"Don't let it strike you again," he interrupted, amiably. "It has struck me that there were never two people so well suited to each other as our married life has proved us to be. I don't mind admitting now that once or twice during the first year I thought that you were a little restless or unhappy, but it was when you were not well, and it was quite natural, and it all passed away, and I don't think it would occur to any one in these days to ask whether you are happy or not." Bertha was playing with his watch-chain, and she separated one charm upon it from another carefully as she answered him in a soft, natural voice: "There is a legend, you know," she said, "that the first year of one's marriage is always uncomfortable." "Oh, mine was not uncomfortable," he returned,--"it was delightful, as all the other years have been; but--just occasionally, you know--there was a--well, a vague something--which never troubles me now." "I must have behaved badly in some way," said Bertha, smiling, "or it would not have troubled you then." And she stooped and kissed him on the forehead. "I have a horrible conviction," she said after it, "that I was a vixen. Was I a vixen? Perhaps I was a vixen, and never suspected it, and no one suspected it but you. Poor boy! Why didn't you return me to papa with thanks? Well, as you have kept me so long, you must make the best of me. And it is very nice and polite in you to pretend that I am satisfactory, and don't make you wretched and your hearth a wilderness by being a hollow worldling." "You are exactly what I want," he responded. "I am a hollow worldling myself. If I were a bricklayer, my idea of domestic bliss might be to spend my evenings at home and watch you mending stockings or knitting, or doing something of that sort; but even then I am afraid I should tire of it, and secretly long for something more frivolous." "For something as frivolous as I am?" she said, with a nervous little laugh. "Quite as frivolous, Richard--really? But I know you will say so. You are always good to me and spoil me." "No, I am not," he answered. "It is simply true that you always please me. It is true I am a rather easy-natured fellow, but I know plenty of good-natured fellows whose wives are terribly unsatisfactory. You are clever and pretty, and don't make mistakes, and you are never exacting, nor really out of humor, and it is impossible for me to tire of you"-- "Really?" she said, quickly, "is that last true?" "Entirely true." "Well," she commented, the color rising in her cheek, "that is a good deal for one's husband to say! That is a triumph. It amounts to a certificate of character."