Yes! another six months and Christmas will be here; and, after Christmas is turned, the weeks till February the 12th—­the second anniversary of Theophil’s coming to New Zion—­will fly by in no time.

Meanwhile Mrs. Talbot and Jenny—­with occasional contributions from Theophil—­began to busy themselves with Jenny’s bottom drawer.

Translated into the language of those more magnificent circles in which this simple-hearted romance has no desire to move, a “bottom drawer” might be described as a trousseau, though such translation would be only partially correct.  A bottom drawer is a good deal more than a trousseau.  It is the corner of a girl’s wardrobe, usually its bottom drawer, where the home that is to be begins to take shape in deposits of various kissed objects, minor articles of apparel, of ornament or use,—­handkerchiefs such as we have already seen Jenny marking, in defiance of the old prophecy that the bride who dares even to write her married name before her marriage will never know a wedding day; quaint candlesticks that had to be picked up in some old curiosity shop as come upon or be missed altogether; pretty shoes of a pattern you weren’t likely to meet with again; occasionally, perhaps, even an anticipatory wedding present, that some friend who would be far away in Australia when the day came had already contributed; a pretty tea-service Theophil had suddenly taken a fancy to buy for Jenny one day,—­“any straw will help a nest;” a sweet and rather naughty picture that must never be hung anywhere but in their little sacred bedroom,—­“O love, our little room!”

How often did Jenny bend lovingly over that drawer, which by now had spread itself over a whole chest of drawers,—­for home was growing, growing,—­only a few more months and it would have grown so big and real that nothing but a little house would hold it.  And Theophil was brought sometimes to peep in too,—­“O love, think of it—­our little home.”

CHAPTER XVI

THEOPHIL ALL THIS TIME

Have I seemed to shirk the subject of Theophil’s feelings all this time?

Well, I confess I have rather shrunk from writing down in so many words that he was in love with Isabel,—­obvious as the fact has been,—­just as he himself shrank from admitting the same truth even to his own soul.

When he had sat up in his study that night of the recital, he had looked the whole sad splendid truth in its wonderful face, had loved it wildly for an hour, and then shut his eyes to it for ever.

He knew that Isabel was the woman God had made for him, sweet, dear Jenny the woman he had made for himself, and he bowed before the work of the greater artist.