Here Charlotte Harman paused and looked straight at her companion. Mrs. Home's full gaze met hers. Again, the innocent candor of the one pair of eyes appealed straight to the heart lying beneath the other. Unconvinced she was still. Still to her, her own story held good: but she was softened, and she held out her hand.
"There is no unreasonableness in you, Charlotte," she said.
"Ah! then you will call me Charlotte?" said the other, her face glowing with delight.
"I call you so now. I won't answer for the future."
"We will accept the pleasant present. I don't fear the future. I shall win your whole heart yet. Now let us drop all disagreeables and talk about those we both love. Charlotte, what a baby you have got! Your baby must be an angel to you."
"All my children are that to me. When I look at them I think God has sent to me three angels to dwell with me."
"Ah! what a happy thought, and what a happy woman. Then your husband, he must be like the archangel Gabriel, so just, so righteous, so noble. I love him already: but I think I should be a little afraid of him. He is so—so very unearthly. Now you, Mrs. Home, let me tell you, are very earthly, very human indeed."
Mrs. Home smiled, for this praise of her best beloved could not but be pleasant to her. She told Miss Harman a little more about her husband and her children, and Miss Harman listened with that appreciation which is the sweetest flattery in the world. After a time she said,—
"I am not going to marry any one the least bit unearthly, but I see you are a model wife, and I want to be likewise. For—did I not tell you?—I am to be married in exactly two months from now."
"Are you really? Are you indeed?"