engagement--blessing her for it, and pitying he would not have it
otherwise. The bitterness of death was past, and henceforth none
save Grace and Victor suspected the worm which fed on Edith's very
life, so light, so merry, so joyous she appeared; and Edith was
happier than she had supposed it possible for her to be. The firm
belief that she was doing right, was, of itself, a source of
peace, and helped to sustain her fainting spirits, still there was
about her a sensation of disquiet, a feeling that new scenes would
do her good, and as the summer advanced, and the scorching July
sun penetrated even to the cool shades of Collingwood, she coaxed
Richard, Grace and Victor to go away. She did not care where, she
said, "anything for a change; she was tired of seeing the same
things continually. She never knew before how stupid Shannondale
was. It must have changed within the last few months."

"I think it was you who have changed," said Grace, fancying that
she could already foresee the restless, uneasy, and not altogether
agreeable woman, which Edith, as Richard's wife, would assuredly
become.

Possibly Richard, too, thought of this, for a sigh escaped him as
he heard Edith find fault with her beautiful home.

Still he offered no remonstrance to going from home awhile, and
two weeks more found them at the Catskill Mountain House, where at
first not one of the assembled throng suspected that the beautiful
young maiden who in the evening danced like a butterfly in their
midst, and in the morning bounded up the rocky heights like some
fearless, graceful chamois, was more than ward to the man who had
the sympathy of all from the moment the whispered words went