I woke to greet Pauline when she came into my sunlit room at five o’clock in the morning, looking still fresh, untired, and more than ever full of the joy of living.  “Oh, it was lovely,” she said, sitting down on my bed.

“Who saw you home?” I asked professionally.

“Oh, Aunt Adela to the very door; she even waited till I shut it.”

“Who did you dance with? " I asked.

“Heaps and heaps of people.  I was lucky; all Thorpshire seemed to be there; and then Mr. Dudley.  Betty, I understand now.”

“What?” I said, alarmed by the note of tragic kindness in her voice.

“About Mr. Dudley, he talked about you so beautifully.  He agrees with me absolutely about your character, and he told me about his sister.”  Pauline’s voice became hushed.

“Did he say she was just a little like you, Pauline?”

“Yes, he did.  You knew her, then?  He said I reminded him of her so strangely.  I think he would make a woman very happy.  I do really.”

“So do I, dear Pauline, really.”

“Then won’t you?”

“No, darling goose.”

“Why?”

“Because I am not the woman.  Go to bed, Pauline.”

She went —­ to sleep?  I cannot say.  I forget whether a girl goes to sleep the first night after she has fallen in love.  Night?  I suppose I should say morning.  But it depends on the hour when she takes the first step into that bewildering fairyland of first love.  For a fairyland it assuredly is, if she is lucky enough to find the right guide.  He must, to begin with, believe in the fairyland.  He must know that the path may be rough at times, stony and overgrown with weeds, but he will know that all the difficulties will be worth while when he brings her out into the open, and they look away to the limitless horizon of happiness.

A few hours later, Pauline said to me at breakfast, “Betty, I think I shall tell that bootmaker to make me two pairs of boots and two pairs of shoes.  It is better to have enough while one is about it, don’t you think so?”

So began the regeneration of Pauline, regeneration in the matter of footgear, I mean, and to wear good boots did her character no harm, nor the pocket of the country shoemaker either, I am sure.  Good boots could not turn her feet from the pathway of truth and goodness which from her earliest childhood she had set out to tread, never pausing except to pick up some one who lagged behind, or to help some one who had strayed from the path.

Dick Dudley, whose pathway through life had zigzagged considerably, was astonished to find how easy the pathway was to keep, guided by Pauline, and how alluring the goal of goodness.  He gave himself up gladly to her guidance, and was touched to find how much there was of latent goodness in him.  He had never before realized, that was all, how much he loved his fellow-creatures, how he longed to help them all, how the conditions of the laboring-classes made his blood boil with indignation, how he idolized babies, loved old women, reverenced old men.