it; and she tried so well that in a few days her face had grown even
bright again,--bright as silver. It could never again be bright as gold.

And Theophil's love was like a sun pouring down upon her day by day.
Yes, he loved her. She could not doubt that, though there were times
when his true words and caresses suddenly seemed to wear a torturing
falsity, as she thought of Isabel.

But such feelings she put from her bravely. Jealous of Isabel in the
common way she had not been. She herself loved her too well, and soon
she was able to talk of her again to Theophil. They had agreed that
Isabel should not know what Jenny had seen that night of the recital.
For Jenny could not bear to think of the letters it would mean. "Let
that be our secret, dear," she said to Theophil; and thus, when Isabel
wrote, she wrote back in her usual way. Theophil and Isabel never wrote
to each other. It was no part of their love to deceive Jenny in letters.
Their love was vowed to silence and absence, and in Theophil's life it
must be more and more of a starlit background.

So the weeks went by, and the marriage of Theophil and Jenny was now
finally fixed for the 12th of February. On second thoughts, as their
love grew serene once more, they had decided not to anticipate that
date, for old Mrs. Talbot's sake; and meanwhile Jenny was admonished by
that old mother to make haste and get that flesh on her bones.

The admonition was not without cause, for it presently became
noticeable that Jenny was not merely negatively disobeying her old
mother in this. Not only was she not growing fatter, but, indeed, she
was, for one reason or another, slowly and almost imperceptibly growing
thinner. It was not those at home who noticed this first, but outside