“I’m glad you both like it.  I feel a little unusual in it—­but I’ll settle down.  I have been a trifle prim in dress.”

Like the giant’s robe, Lynda Kendall’s garments seemed to transform her and endow her with the attributes peculiar to themselves.  So gradually, that it caused no wonder, she developed the blessed gift of charm and it coloured life for herself and others like a glow from a hidden fire.

All this did not interfere with her business.  Once she donned her working garb she was the capable Lynda of the past.  A little more sentiment, perhaps, appeared in her designs—­a wider conception; but that was natural, for happiness had come to her—­and a delicious sense of success.  She, womanlike, began to rejoice in her power.  She heard of John Morrell’s marriage to a young western girl, about this time, with genuine delight.  Her sky was clearing of all regrets.

“Morrell was in the office to-day,” Brace told his sister one evening, “it seemed to me a bit brash for him to lay it on so thick about his happiness and all that sort of rot.”

“Brace!”

“Well, it might be all right to another fellow, but it sounded out of tune, somehow, to me.  He says she is the kind that has flung herself body and soul into love; I wager she’s a fool.”

Lynda looked serious at once.

“I hope not,” she said thoughtfully, “and she’ll be happier with John, in the long run, if she has some reservations.  I did not think that once; I do now.”

“But—­you, Lyn?  You had reservations to burn.”

“I had—­too many.  That was where the mistake began.”

“You—­do not regret?”

Lynda came close to him.

“Brace, I regret nothing.  I am learning that every step leads to the next—­if you don’t stumble.  If you do—­you have to pick yourself up and go back.  If John learned from me, I, too, have learned from him.  I’m going to try to—­love his wife.”

“I bet she’s a cross, somehow, between a cowboy and an idiot.  John protested too much about her charms.  She’s got a sister—­sounds a bit to me as if Morrell had married them both.  She’s coming to live with them after awhile.  When I fall in love, it’s going to be with an orphan out of an asylum.”

Lynda laughed and gave her brother a hug.  Then she said: 

“Our circle is widening and, by the way Brace, I’m going to begin to entertain a little.”

“Good Lord, Lyn!”

“Oh! modestly—­until I can use my stiff little wings.  A dinner now and then and a luncheon occasionally when I know enough nice women to make a decent showing.  Clothes and women, when adopted late in life, are difficult.  But oh!  Brace, it is great—­this blessed home life of mine!  The coming away from my beloved work to something even better.”

* * * * *