Anna’s dearest dream was suddenly realized that summer, and Anna, lovelier than ever, came out to tell Sue of the chance meeting with Doctor Hoffmann in the laboratory that had, in two short minutes, turned the entire current of her life.  It was all wonderful and delightful beyond words, not a tiny cloud darkened the sky.

Conrad Hoffmann was forty-five years old, seventeen years older than his promised wife, but splendidly tall and strong, and—­Anna and Susan agreed—­strikingly handsome.  He was at the very top of his profession, managed his own small surgical hospital, and maintained one of the prettiest homes in the city.  A musician, a humanitarian, rich in his own right, he was so conspicuous a figure among the unmarried men of San Francisco that Anna’s marriage created no small stir, and the six weeks of her engagement were packed with affairs in her honor.

Susan’s little sons were presently taken to Sausalito to be present at Aunt Anna’s wedding.  Susan was nervous and tired before she had finished her own dressing, wrapped and fed the beribboned baby, and slipped the wriggling Martin into his best white clothes.  But she forgot everything but pride and pleasure when Betsey, the bride and “Grandma” fell with shrieks of rapture upon the children, and during the whole happy day she found herself over and over again at Billy’s side, listening to him, watching him, and his effect on other people, slipping her hand into his.  It was as if, after quiet months of taking him for granted, she had suddenly seen her big, clever, gentle husband as a stranger again, and fallen again in love with him.

Susan felt strangely older than Anna to-day; she thought of that other day when she and Billy had gone up to the big woods; she remembered the odor of roses and acacia, the fragrance of her gown, the stiffness of her rose-crowned hat.

Anna and Conrad were going away to Germany for six months, and Susan and the babies spent a happy week in Anna’s old room.  Betsey was filling what had been Susan’s position on the “Democrat” now, and cherished literary ambitions.

“Oh, why must you go, Sue?” Mrs. Carroll asked, wistfully, when the time for packing came.  “Couldn’t you stay on awhile, it’s so lovely to have you here!”

But Susan was firm.  She had had her holiday; Billy could not divide his time between Sausalito and the “Protest” office any longer.  They crossed the bay in mid-afternoon, and the radiant husband and father met them at the ferry.  Susan sighed in supreme relief as he lifted the older boy to his shoulder, and picked up the heavy suitcase.

“We could send that?” submitted Susan, but Billy answered by signaling a carriage, and placing his little family inside.

“Oh, Bill, you plutocrat!” Susan said, sinking back with a great sigh of pleasure.

“Well, my wife doesn’t come home every day!” Billy said beaming.

Susan felt, in some subtle climatic change, that the heat of the summer was over.  Mission Street slept under a soft autumn haze; the hint of a cool night was already in the air.