To-morrow evening when Lyndall came she would bring her here, and show it her all. Lyndall would so like to see it — the little wreath, and the ring, and the white veil! It would be so nice! Then Em fell to seeing pictures. Lyndall should live with them till she herself got married some day.

Every day when Gregory came home, tired from his work, he would look about and say, “Where is my wife? Has no one seen my wife? Wife, some coffee!” and she would give him some.

Em’s little face grew very grave at last, and she knelt up and extended her hands over the drawer of linen.

“Oh, God!” she said, “I am so glad! I do not know what I have done that I should be so glad. Thank you!”

CHAPTER IV

LYNDALL

SHE was more like a princess, yes, far more like a princess, than the lady who still hung on the wall in Tant’ Sannie’s bedroom. So Em thought. She leaned back in the little arm-chair; she wore a gray dressing-gown, and her long hair was combed out and hung to the ground. Em, sitting before her, looked up with mingled respect and admiration.

Lyndall was tired after her long journey, and had come to her room early. Her eyes ran over the familiar objects.

Strange to go away for four years, and come back, and find that the candle standing on the dressing-table still cast the shadow of an old crone’s head in the corner beyond the clothes-horse. Strange that even a shadow should last longer than man! She looked about among the old familiar objects; all was there, but the old self was gone.

“What are you noticing?” asked Em.

“Nothing and everything. I thought the windows were higher. If I were you, when I get this place I should raise the walls. There is not room to breathe here; one suffocates.”

“Gregory is going to make many alterations,” said Em; and drawing nearer to the gray dressing-gown respectfully. “Do you like him, Lyndall? Is he not handsome?”

“He must have been a fine baby,” said Lyndall, looking at the white dimity curtain that hung above the window.

Em was puzzled.

“There are some men,” said Lyndall, “whom you never can believe were babies at all; and others you never see without thinking how very nice they must have looked when they wore socks and pink sashes.”

Em remained silent; then she said with a little dignity, “When you know him you will love him as I do. When I compare other people with him, they seem so weak and little. Our hearts are so cold, our loves are mixed up with so many other things. But he — no one is worthy of his love. I am not. It is so great and pure.”