"Oh, he doesn't know," came the quick response. "He is very fond of Stanley. He is pleased with our engagement. Still he has always been interested in my work. But I'd rather fight it out alone. If I were some day to go to him and say, 'I have broken my engagement,' he would be dreadfully disappointed, but not angry. That's just the trouble. I've always done exactly as I pleased. It's hard now to think of doing what some one else dictates. Sometimes I feel that I love Stanley a great deal; then again I feel differently about it. I'm really in a terrible muddle. I wish I were just Daffydowndilly back at good old Overton again."
"I wouldn't stay in a muddle then," advised practical Grace. "I'd settle matters once and for all, and whichever way I might decide, I'd make myself believe that it was for the best. But first of all I'd be very sure that love was love." She had reached the wise conclusion that true love and Arline were as yet strangers.
"I can't say anything to Stanley just now. He's in Oregon and won't be back until the last of August. I don't care to write him. I must wait until I see him. But I shall think over all you've said and try very hard to be true to myself." Arline rose and standing beside Grace slid a loving arm about her neck. "I knew you could help me," she said. "I feel ever so much better. Now I mustn't keep you any longer. Thank you, Loyalheart. You've been very sweet to poor, muddled Daffydowndilly."
"You are a dear child and deserve the best that life can give you." Grace returned the gentle embrace with a tenderness that bespoke unutterable regard. It hurt her to know that gay, light-hearted Arline Thayer who had always appeared to slip through life so smoothly, should have run against an ugly snag.
Long after they had said good-night, Grace lay looking out at the calm moonlight and pondering over the great changes that less than a year had brought her. Her own happiness so complete, she longed for the whole world to be happy with her. Her ever-ready sympathy went out to all those in it whose difficult love-problems tended toward renunciation. She wished whole-heartedly that she might waken to the sunlight of a day when she could say joyfully and with supreme truth: "All's right with the world."
CHAPTER V
FLYING IN THE FACE OF SUPERSTITION
"Oh, mother, isn't it nice to be home again?" Grace Harlowe dropped into her favorite chair and surveyed the familiar living-room with the same glad appreciation she would have bestowed upon a long-lost friend. "I've loved being with the girls; but, after all, home is best. I'm fortunate in that I am going to live so near to you. If Tom goes back to the Forestry Department this winter, I'm afraid I shall leave Haven Home more than once to take care of itself and come trotting back to you. It will be dreadfully lonely there with Tom away. Not that it isn't the most beautiful place in the world, but then, you are you, and I can't do without you."
"I have been obliged to give you up the greater part of the last six years. I suppose I ought to feel resigned to it by this time." Mrs. Harlowe's smile hinted at wistfulness. "I am glad to be home again, too. I hope we haven't forgotten to buy every single thing you need. I imagine your wedding gown will come to-day. Let me see. It was to have been finished the day we left New York. We've been home two days. Yes, I think we may expect it to-day, or not later than to-morrow. There's the doorbell ringing now. Perhaps it's the expressman."