this eager girl in a striped blue and yellow and purple skirt, and
rough white crash hat, was the bored, the remote, the much-feared
Mrs. Clarence Breckenridge. Something free and sweet and virginal
had come back to her, or been born in her. She was like no phase
of the many phases in which he had known her; she was a Rachael
who had never known the sordid, the disillusioning side of life.
Even her seriousness had the confident, eager quality of youth,
and her gayety was as pure as a child's. She had cast off the old
sophistication, the old recklessness of speech; she was not even
interested in the old associates. The world for her was all in him
and their love for each other, and she walked back to Quaker
Bridge, at his side, too wholly swept away from all self-
consciousness to know or to care that they were at once the target
for all eyes.

A wonderful day followed, many wonderful days. Doctor Gregory's
great touring car and his livened man were at Mrs. Dimmick's door
when they got back, an incongruous note in little Quaker Bridge,
still gasping from the great storm.

"Your car?" Rachael said. "You drove down?"

"Yesterday. I put up at Valentine's--George Valentine's, you know,
at Clark's Hills."

"Oh, that's my nice lady--gray haired, and with three children?"
Rachael said eagerly. "Do you know her?"

"Know her? Valentine is my closest associate. They meet us in town
to-morrow: he's to be best man. You'll have to have them to dinner