bees. Over her future husband she began at once to exercise the control
of mistress and mother; and she loved him more dearly after they had
been engaged a year than at the beginning of the contract. By that time
she knew his disposition, and instead of displaying frantic impatience
at it, as might have been predicted, her tolerance was extreme. She bore
with Clem because she loved him with the full love proper to such a
nature as her own; and, though she presently found herself powerless to
modify his character in any practical degree, his gloomy and uneven mind
never lessened the sturdy optimism of Chris herself, or her sure
confidence that the future would unite them. Through her protracted
engagement Mrs. Blanchard's daughter maintained a lively and sanguine
cheerfulness. But seldom was it that she lost patience with the dreamer.
Then her rare, indignant outbursts of commonplace and common sense, like
a thunderstorm, sweetened the stagnant air of Clement's thoughts and
awoke new, wholesome currents in his mind.

As a rule, on the occasion of their frequent country walks, Clem and
Chris found personal problems and private interests sufficient for all
conversation, but it happened that upon a Sunday in mid-December, as
they passed through the valley of the Teign, where the two main streams
of that river mingle at the foothills of the Moor, the subject of Will
and Phoebe for a time at least filled their thoughts. The hour was clear
and bright, yet somewhat cheerless. The sun had already set, from the
standpoint of all life in the valley, and darkness, hastening out of the
east, merged the traceries of a million naked boughs into a thickening
network of misty grey. The river beneath these woods churned in winter
flood, while clear against its raving one robin sang little tinkling
litanies from the branch of an alder.

Chris stood upon Lee Bridge at the waters' meeting and threw scraps of