He ran toward her with a heightened color and outstretched hands. But
she whipped her own behind her, glanced rapidly up and down the long
hall, and stood looking at him with a half-audacious, half-mischievous
admiration, in utter contrast to her old reserve.

"I've a great mind not to shake hands with you at all. You passed me
just now on the piazza without speaking; and I ran after you, as I
suppose many another poor woman has done."

Mr. Oakhurst stammered that she was so changed.

"The more reason why you should know me. Who changed me? You. You have
re-created me. You found a helpless, crippled, sick, poverty-stricken
woman, with one dress to her back, and that her own make, and you gave
her life, health, strength, and fortune. You did; and you know it, sir.
How do you like your work?" She caught the side-seams of her gown in
either hand, and dropped him a playful courtesy. Then, with a sudden,
relenting gesture, she gave him both her hands.

Outrageous as this speech was, and unfeminine as I trust every fair
reader will deem it, I fear it pleased Mr. Oakhurst. Not but that he was
accustomed to a certain frank female admiration; but then it was of the
coulisse, and not of the cloister, with which he always persisted in
associating Mrs. Decker. To be addressed in this way by an invalid
Puritan, a sick saint with the austerity of suffering still clothing
her, a woman who had a Bible on the dressing-table, who went to church
three times a day, and was devoted to her husband, completely bowled him
over. He still held her hands as she went on,--

"Why didn't you come before? What were you doing in Marysville, in San