“Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Powell, when I was young my creed was founded on the fact of sin in man; but now that I am old, I find it more and more founded on the fact of the good that is in all of them.”
When the supper was over, Lawrence gave the cheer that every one wished to see come to the wedding by clearing the parlor for a dance, and Marley was glad that his position now permitted him to refrain from dancing with a valid excuse.
Marley thought that Lavinia never looked so pretty as she did when she stood at the head of the stairs after she had donned her blue traveling gown, drawing on her gloves and waiting for the carriage that was to drive them to the station. Her face was rosy in the light that filled the house, and she met his eyes with a fond, contented glance.
“Are you happy?” he asked.
“Don’t you see?” she said, looking up at him.
“And will you be happy in that big city, away from every one you know, as the wife of a newspaper man?”
“I shall be happy anywhere with you.”
“Our dreams are coming true,” Marley said, “after a fashion. And yet not just as we dreamed them, after all.”
“In all the essentials they are, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but you know our dream was that I was to practise law.”