Oh! Mr. Clifford that night comes before me so vividly, it seems as if I
am living it all over again. I do not think Mr. Romaine has ever
recovered from the reawakening of his appetite. He has since married
Jeanette. I meet her occasionally. She has a beautiful home, dresses
magnificently, and has a retinue of servants; and yet I fancy she is not
happy. That somewhere hidden out of sight there is a worm eating at the
core of her life. She has a way of dropping her eyes and an absent look
about her that I do not fully understand, but it seems to me that I miss
the old elasticity of her spirits, the merry ring of her voice, the
pleasant thrills of girlish laughter, and though she never confesses it
to me I doubt that Jeanette is happy. And with this sad experience in
the past can you blame me if I am slow, very slow to let the broken
tendrils of my heart entwine again?"

"Miss Belle," said Paul Clifford catching eagerly at the smallest straw
of hope, "if you can not give me the first love of a fresh young life, I
am content with the rich [aftermath?] of your maturer years, and ask
from life no higher prize; may I not hope for that?"

"I will think on it but for the present let us change the subject."

* * * * *

"Do you think Jeanette is happy? She seems so different from what she
used to be," said Miss Tabitha Jones to several friends who were
spending the evening with her.

"Happy!" replied Mary Gladstone, "don't see what's to hinder her from
being happy. She has everything that heart can wish. I was down to her
house yesterday, and she has just moved in her new home. It has all the