As the picture of this scene rose before the eyes of the young bride she smiled again. She knew now what she had guessed then--that she was the important business that was bringing the senior partner of Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron to Norwich. When he came up the next Saturday and had made the acquaintance of her father and mother she began to think that perhaps he was really interested in her. She spent the next twenty-four hours in a strange dream of ecstasy; and when he walked home with her after the evening service she knew that she had found her fate most unexpectedly. As they neared her father's door he had asked her if she were willing to trust her future to him, and she had answered solemnly that she was his whenever he might choose to claim her. Although she had said this, she was taken aback when he had wished her to be married early in September. She had had to beg to have the wedding postponed till the end of October, assuring him that she could not be ready before then. Now, as she sat there rocking silently in the sitting-room of his house in New York, with a smile of happiness curving her lips, and as she recalled the swiftness of time's flight during the few weeks of her engagement, she did not regret that his neglected business would keep him in town all winter and that the promised trip to Europe was postponed until next summer. They had gone on their brief wedding journey to Niagara and Montreal and Quebec; and they had returned only the day before. Last night for the first time had she sat at the head of his table as the mistress of his house. For the first time that morning had she poured out his coffee in their future home, smiling at him across the broad table in the dingy dining-room with its black horsehair chairs. Then he had sent for a cab, and he had insisted on her coming down to the office with him. It was the first time that she had seen the immense building occupied by Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron, with the packing-cases piled high on the sidewalk and with half a dozen drays unloading the goods just received from Europe. Although two or three of the clerks were looking at him when he got out of the cab, he had kissed her; and although she supposed she must have blushed, she did not really object. She was John's wife now, and it did not matter who knew it. He had called to the driver to come back so that he might tell her to stop anywhere she pleased on her way up-town and to buy anything she fancied. She had come straight home without buying anything, for, of course, she was not going to waste John's money.