He nodded again, his gaze not moving from the fire.

“Laura was with her mother,” said Mrs. Lindley.  “She looked very fetching in a black cloth suit and a fur hat—­old ones her sister left, I suspect, but very becoming, for all that.  Laura’s `going out’ more than usual this winter.  She’s really the belle of the holiday dances, I hear.  Of course she would be”, she added, thoughtfully—­“now.”

“Why should she be `now’ more than before?”

“Oh, Laura’s quite blossomed,” Mrs. Lindley answered.  “I think she’s had some great anxieties relieved.  Of course both she and her mother must have worried about Cora as much as they waited on her.  It must be a great burden lifted to have her comfortably settled, or, at least, disposed of.  I thought they both looked better.  But I have a special theory about Laura:  I suppose you’ll laugh at me——­”

“Oh, no.”

“I wish you would sometimes,” she said wistfully, “so only you laughed.  My idea is that Laura was in love with that poor little Trumble, too.”

“What?” He looked up at that.

“Yes; girls fall in love with anybody.  I fancy she cared very deeply for him; but I think she’s a strong, sane woman, now.  She’s about the steadiest, coolest person I know—­and I know her better, lately, than I used to.  I think she made up her mind that she’d not sit down and mope over her unhappiness, and that she’d get over what caused it; and she took the very best remedy:  she began going about, going everywhere, and she went gayly, too!  And I’m sure she’s cured; I’m sure she doesn’t care the snap of her fingers for Wade Trumble or any man alive.  She’s having a pretty good time, I imagine:  she has everything in the world except money, and she’s never cared at all about that.  She’s young, and she dresses well—­these days—­and she’s one of the handsomest girls in town; she plays like a poet, and she dances well——­”

“Yes,” said Richard;—­reflectively, “she does dance well.”

“And from what I hear from Mrs. Villard,” continued his mother, “I guess she has enough young men in love with her to keep any girl busy.”

He was interested enough to show some surprise.  “In love with Laura?”

“Four, I hear.”  The best of women are sometimes the readiest with impromptu statistics.

“Well, well!” he said, mildly.

“You see, Laura has taken to smiling on the world, and the world smiles back at her.  It’s not a bad world about that, Richard.”

“No,” he sighed.  “I suppose not.”

“But there’s more than that in this case, my dear son.”

“Is there?”

The intelligent and gentle matron laughed as though at some unexpected turn of memory and said: 

“Speaking of Hedrick, did you ever hear the story of the Devil of Lisieux, Richard?”

“I think not; at least, I don’t remember it.”