"Do you like these horses, Marion?" said Perry Whaley, when they had
gone several miles. "If you do you can drive them as long as you
live."

She laughed, more because it was the feminine way than in her feeling.

"Drive them alone?"

"Only when you do not want me to go."

"Then it will seldom be alone, Perry."

They both breathed short in silence, the happy silence of youth's
desire and assent, until Perry said, "You are sure you love me, then?"

"Must I be frank, Perry?"

"As much as ever in your life!"

"I am very sure. I loved you in my childhood--no more now than then,
except that the growth of love has strengthened with my strength."

"Marion," said the young man with a thoughtful face, "if I have not
long ago recognized this fidelity, which, to be also frank with you, I
have suspected--not because of any desert of mine, but love is like
the light which we distinctly feel even with our eyes shut--it has
been because with all my soul I was laboring for my father's love
first. You have seen the shadow on his brow? How it came there I do
not know. I have thought that with my wife to light the dark chambers
of our old house, a triple love would bloom there, and what he has