“But you softened on that point, eh?” asked Jim.

“Oh, right away!” Julia’s wonderful eyes shone upon him with something unearthly in their light.  “Because God decides to whom we shall belong, Jim,” said she, with childish faith, “and to start wrong with my own people would mean that I was all wrong, everywhere.  But my highest ambition then was to grow, as the years went on, to be useful to nice people, and to be liked by them.  I never dreamed every one would be so friendly!  And when Miss Pierce and Miss Scott have asked me to their homes, and when Mrs. Forbes took me to Santa Cruz, and Mrs. Chetwynde asked me to dine with them, well, I can’t tell you what it meant!”

“It meant that you are as good—­and better, in every way—­than all the rest of them put together!” said the prejudiced Jim.

“Oh, Jim!” Julia looked at him over her teacup, a breach of manners which Jim thought very charming.  “No,” she said, presently, pursuing her own thoughts, “but I never thought of marriage!  And now you come along, Jim, so—­so good to me, so infinitely dear, and I can’t—­I can’t help caring—­” And suddenly her lip trembled, and tears filled her eyes.  She looked down at her teacup, and stirred it blindly.

“You angel!” Jim said.

“Don’t—­make—­me—­cry—!” Julia begged thickly.  A second later she looked up and laughed through tears.  “And I feel like a person who has been skipped over four or five grades at school; I don’t know whether I can be a rich man’s wife!” she said whimsically.  “I know I can go on as I am, reading and thinking, and listening to other people, and keeping quiet when I have nothing to say, but—­but when I think of being Mrs. James Studdiford—­”

“Oh, I love to hear you say it!” Jim leaned across the table, and put one warm big hand over hers.  “My darling little wife!”

The word dyed Julia’s cheeks crimson, and for the long hour that they lingered over their tea she seemed to Jim more charming than he had ever found her before.  Her gravity, with its deep hint of suppressed mirth, and her mirth that was always so delicate and demure, so shot with sudden pathos and seriousness, were equally exquisite; and her beauty won all eyes, from the old waiter who hovered over their happiness, to the little baby in the street car who would sit in Julia’s lap and nowhere else.  Jim presently left Julia to her Girls’ Club, consoling himself with the thought that on the following night they were to make their first trip to the theatre together.

But when, at half-past seven the next evening, Jim presented himself at the settlement house, he found Julia alone, and obviously not dressed for the theatre.  She admitted him with a kiss that to his lover’s enthusiasm was strangely cool, and drew him into the reception hall.

“Your aunt had to go out with Miss Parker,” said Julia.  “But she’ll positively be here a little after eight.”

“My darling, I didn’t come to see Aunt Sanna!” Jim caught her to him.  “But, sweetheart,” he said, “how hot your face is, and your poor little hands are icy!  Aren’t you well?”