"Love itself, I suppose," Theresa heard.
"Are you ill?" She forced a place for herself on the window-sill, and took Grace's hands. "Grace, what has happened?" Fear pumped at her heart and shook her body. "Grace, tell me."
She turned for a long, full look and the eyes were not those of an unhappy woman. "I'm going to be married in a month," she said.
Theresa's mouth fell slack. "What—on earth for?" she asked. Dreadful visions flashed, but Grace dispelled them with her bubbling laughter.
"Oh, Theresa! Because I am in love! Because—because I understand your poor little Mr. Partiloe."
Theresa released her hands. "You don't mean to say that your man behaved like that?"
Grace was dignified, almost matronly. "My man," she said, "behaved exactly as I could have wished."
"And where," asked Theresa, with the coarseness of desperation, "did you pick him up?"
"He lives next door—lodges there."
"Not the man who strums, and fiddles, and sings?"