I started up in distress; but Janet, putting the kitten gently back on
the table, burst into laughter. I am very sure I had never heard Janet
laugh before, and I don't think Paul ever had. A prettier, happier, more
silvery little peal could not be imagined; but it was not so much that
which struck home to my heart as the fact that if I had shut my eyes I
could have thought _my_ Janet stood in the room. The girl had her
mother's laugh.

I returned hastily to my work, and did not dare to lift my head until
Janet was gone--then I looked stealthily at Paul.

The sun was just setting--the sky a rolling roseate glory from end to
end. Paul--my Paul--my Paul, with the old beautiful light in his face,
stood, with arms crossed, looking up into it. All at once something came
into my throat which almost stifled me, so that I could not have sat
where I was for any consideration whatever. I slipped quietly away and
left him.

From this day I loved the girl. Whether it was her carelessness about
the dress--so like her mother--or the laugh--or what--I loved her now
almost as much as I had loved her mother.

It seemed to me that from this day, too, Paul became more like his old
self: a very much toned-down and softened old self; no longer so much
the hard, cynical Paul of later years as the boyish Paul of old. Of
course, no sooner had my feelings changed in this way than I became
greatly interested in Janet's lovers. I thought the cotton millionaire
vulgar; and the American railway king I could not make this or that of;
but the lord seemed a very nice, simple-mannered young man; so that I