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 poser and Nana. But the association between a French-Canadian servant-girl and the winner of a recent prix de Rome had been too remote even for her musically discerning young husband, who had got up from the piano with a hint of forbearance in his manner. That had cut her to the quick, for it had implied maladdress on her part, and gradually, through an intuitive process that hurt, she had gained an inkling of the incongruity of her comparison. She had wished to state the incongruity and turn it off with a touch of satire aimed at her headlong self, but chagrin had held her mute. It was one of those occasions where an attempted explanation would only underline the regrettable fact that an explanation had been needed. Her ideas, she felt, would always be ill-assorted; her comments, however good per se, irrelevant. Her mind was a basket tumbling over with wild flowers; it must be annoying for Keble to find pollen on his nose from a dandelion in the basket after he had leaned forward at the invitation of a violet.

Rising from her couch she crossed the room on tiptoe and sat on the arm of Keble's chair, leaning her head on his back as he continued to read.

"After that sharp, brief winter, the sun was already at work, softening leaf and bud, as you might feel by a faint sweetness in the air," read Keble.

The faint sweet airs of a Western Canadian spring,—the first after a sharp long winter,—were at the black open window, stirring the curtains, cool-