instead of becoming a shining light to his generation, he had dwindled
into a glow-worm beneath the billows of his wife's velvet gown.

Now, as Laura held his hand, she bent upon him one of her long,
meditative looks. "Uncle Horace, of all this queer family is Aunt Rosa
the queerest or am I?"

Mr. Payne shook his silvered head. "I don't think you're a match for
Rosa yet, my dear," he answered with his gentle humour. "Wait till
you've turned seventy--then we'll see."

"But I'm not like other women. I don't think their ways. I don't even
want the things they want."

The old man's smile shone out as he patted her hand. "That means, I
suppose, that you don't want to be married. Who is it this time? Ah, my
child, you are born to be adored or to be hated."

Without replying to his question, Laura lifted her full, dark eyes to
his face. As he met the intellectual power of her glance, he told
himself that he understood the mysterious active principle of her
personality--how the many were repelled while the few returned to
worship. One felt her, was repulsed or possessed by her, even in her
muteness.

"I don't see how any one who has ever dreamed dreams," she said at last,
"could fall in love and marry--it is so different--so different."

"So you have refused Mr. Wilberforce? Well, well, he has reached the age
when a poor lover may make an excellent friend--and besides, to become