Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/30

Rh her home. He had taken her for better, for worse; but he longed to quench all baser chances in the daylight of actual security. His philosophy in this as in all things was extremely simple,—to make her happy that she might be good. Meanwhile as he cunningly devised her happiness, his own seemed securely established. He felt twice as much a man as before, and the world seemed as much again a world. All his small stale merits became fragrant with the virtue of unselfish use.

One of his first acts, before he left town, had been to divest Nora of her shabby mourning and dress her afresh in childish colors. He learned from the proprietor's wife at his hotel that this was considered by several ladies interested in Nora's fortunes (especially by her of the subscription) an act of gross impiety; but he held to his purpose, nevertheless. When she was freshly arrayed, he took her to a photographer and made her sit for half a dozen portraits. They were not flattering; they gave her an aged, sombre, lifeless air. He showed them to two old ladies of his acquaintance, whose judgment he valued, without saying whom they represented; the ladies pronounced her a "fright." It was directly after this that Roger hurried her away to the peaceful, uncritical country. Her manner here for a long time remained singularly docile and spiritless. She was not exactly sad, but neither was she cheerful. She smiled, as if from the fear to displease by not smiling. She had the air of a child who has been much alone, and who has learned quite to underestimate her natural right to amusement. She seemed at times hopelessly, defiantly torpid. "Heaven help me!" thought Roger, as he surreptitiously