with mirth and intelligence, whose ever-springing fountain of
happiness was so full that even in the solemnity of the game it found
expression in little piquant gestures, brief words, and smiles that
were like glints of sunshine. Her very presence lifted him to a higher
plane, and gave a greater capacity for enjoyment, and sometimes simply
an arch smile or an unexpected tone set his nerves vibrating in a
manner as delightful as it was unexplainable by any past experience
that he could recall. She was a good walker and horsewoman, and as
their acquaintance ripened he began to ask permission to join her in
her rides and rambles. She assented without the slightest hesitancy,
but he soon found that she gave him no exclusive monopoly of these
excursions, and that he must share them with other young men. Her
absences from home were always comparatively brief, however, and that
which charmed him most was her sunny devotion to her invalid and often
very irritable father. She was the antidote to his age and to his
infirmities of body and temper. While she was away the world in
general, and his own little sphere in particular, tended toward a
hopeless snarl. Jinny, the colored servant, was subserviency itself,
but her very obsequiousness irritated him, although her drollery was
at times diverting. It was usually true, however, that but one touch
and one voice could soothe the jangling nerves. As Graham saw this
womanly magic, which apparently cost no more effort than the wood fire
put forth in banishing chilliness and discomfort, the thought would
come, "Blessed will be the man who can win her as the light and life
of his home!"

When days passed, and no one seemed to have a greater place in her
thoughts and interest than himself, was it unnatural that the hope
should dawn that she might create a home for him? If she had a favored
suitor his aunt would be apt to know of it. She did not seem