But in spite of the ingredients brought by these facts and the memories of the past, Mildred found the cup of happiness which Arnold pressed to her lips sweet indeed.  She had been exceedingly sorrowful for a long time, and it is contrary to nature that the young should cling to sorrow, however true and constant they may be.  Her love was a part of her happy girlhood, and now it seemed to have the power to bring back some of her former girlish lightness of heart.  The prospects offered by Arnold certainly had little to do with the returning tide of gladness which seemed bearing her from the dark, rugged shores on which she had been nearly wrecked.  It was a buoyancy inherent within the love she cherished, and her joy was so sweet, so profound, that she shut her eyes to the future and thought, “For a few days, for a few weeks, we’ll just drink deeply at this life-giving fountain.  After our long separation it will do us both more good than anything else.”

She had said to Arnold that she was willing to wait, that she would rather wait, but she soon began to feel differently.  Arnold infused into her nature some of his own dreamy, enervated spirit, and sometimes he would describe to her an imaginary home so exactly to her taste that she would sigh deeply; and one day she remonstrated, “Don’t tantalize me with any more such exquisite mirages.  Let us rather think of the best and quickest way to secure a real home, and let us be content in it, however humble it must be.”  But Arnold was far better able to construct an imaginary palace than an ordinary cottage.  Although he seemed gaining steadily under the impulse of his happiness, she often trembled to see how frail he was in body and how untrained and impracticable in mind.  He was essentially the product of wealth, luxury, and seclusion, and while his intentions might be the best, she was sometimes compelled to doubt his ability to make much headway in the practical, indifferent world.  Instead of being discouraged, she only thought, “No one can ever doubt the genuineness of my love.  Roger is rich already, and he is certain to become eminent, and yet my love is more than all the world to me, and I so long for a little nook of a home that I could call all my own, that I would be willing to marry Vinton at once and support him myself if his health required it.  I don’t think I can be like other girls.  I shall never get over my pride, but I haven’t a particle of ambition.  The world at large is nothing to me, and instead of wishing to shine in it, I am best pleased to escape its notice altogether.”

Arnold’s family were as deeply perplexed as they were incensed at his course.  He would not leave the city for any fashionable resort, and they well knew the reason.  His father and mother hesitated in their departure, not knowing what “folly,” as they termed it, he might be guilty of in their absence.  They felt that they must bring the matter to some issue, and yet how to do so puzzled them greatly, for, as he had said, he had done nothing as yet to disgrace them, and his bearing toward them was as irreproachable as it was cold and dignified.