“What’s all this nonsense, Harrie?” said her husband, in a sharp tone.

At another time, the Doctor and Pauline were driving upon the beach at sunset, when, turning a sudden corner, Miss Dallas cried out, in real delight,—­

“See!  That beautiful creature!  Who can it be?”

And there was Harrie, out on a rock in the opal surf,—­a little scarlet mermaid, combing her hair with her thin fingers, from which the water almost washed the wedding ring.  It was—­who knew how long, since the pretty bathing-suit had been taken down from the garret nails?  What sudden yearning for the wash of waves, and the spring of girlhood, and the consciousness that one is fair to see, had overtaken her?  She watched through her hair and her fingers for the love in her husband’s eyes.

But he waded out to her, ill-pleased.

“Harrie, this is very imprudent,—­very!  I don’t see what could have possessed you!”

Myron Sharpe loved his wife.  Of course he did.  He began, about this time, to state the fact to himself several times a day.  Had she not been all the world to him when he wooed and won her in her rosy, ripening days?  Was she not all the world to him now that a bit of searness had crept upon her, in a married life of eight hard-working years?

That she had grown a little sear, he felt somewhat keenly of late.  She had a dreary, draggled look at breakfast, after the children had cried at night,—­and the nights when Mrs. Sharpe’s children did not cry were like angels’ visits.  It was perhaps the more noticeable, because Miss Dallas had a peculiar color and coolness and sparkle in the morning, like that of opening flowers. She had not been up till midnight with a sick baby.

Harrie was apt to be too busy in the kitchen to run and meet him when he came home at dusk.  Or, if she came, it was with her sleeves rolled up and an apron on.  Miss Dallas sat at the window; the lace curtain waved about her; she nodded and smiled as he walked up the path.  In the evening Harrie talked of Rocko, or the price of butter; she did not venture beyond, poor thing! since her experience with Tennessee.

Miss Dallas quoted Browning, and discussed Goethe, and talked Parepa; and they had no lights, and the September moon shone in.  Sometimes Mrs. Sharpe had mending to do, and, as she could not sew on her husband’s buttons satisfactorily by moonlight, would slip into the dining-room with kerosene and mosquitoes for company.  The Doctor may have noticed, or he may not, how comfortably he could, if he made the proper effort, pass the evening without her.

But Myron Sharpe loved his wife.  To be sure he did.  If his wife doubted it,—­but why should she doubt it?  Who thought she doubted it?  If she did, she gave no sign.  Her eyes, he observed, had brightened, of late; and when they went to her from the moonlit parlor, there was such a pretty color upon her cheeks, that he used to stoop and kiss them, while Miss Dallas discreetly occupied herself in killing mosquitoes.  Of course he loved his wife!