"It is in this case. Do you think I don't know the doubt in all your minds?--yes, even yours, for you've become another person since you married Craig."
"Oh, yes! You've been thinking ever since you came that you're dead thankful you don't have to come back to it--now, haven't you?"
"Jimps, dear, I lived all my life in the hardest, narrowest economy. If I had had all this beautiful experience Jean is having----"
"I know. But you wouldn't come back, even to this place of ours----"
"That's begging the question. For Jean it's a wonderful change, and any one can see what it's done for her."
"Physically, yes. But I want you to find out whether she's actually happy or not."
"I will," promised his friend with a nod; for she knew James Stuart much too well to imagine she could put him off without complying with his expressed desire.
It looked as if Jeannette herself were anxious to assure her cousin's mind, for Stuart had no sooner brought Georgiana back to the porch than his wife took possession of her.
"Georgiana, dear, I want you to tell me one thing," began Jeannette, as the two moved slowly a little away from the rest. "Do you think we are making a success of it?"
"A wonderful success, Jean. I couldn't have believed it, even what I see on the surface. How about it--inside? That's a pretty searching question, and you needn't answer it if you don't want to. Everything about you seems to answer it."
Jeannette stopped short and turned to face her cousin. "Haven't I written you the answer, over and over?"
"Yes. That's why I want to hear it from your own lips."
"You shall. First, though--Georgiana, you knew Antoinette Burwell married Miles Channing last December?"
"Separated; she's gone back to her father. She was the most wildly happy bride I ever saw. Think of it, George--in six months! What do you suppose would have happened if you----"
"Don't! I didn't." And Georgiana's grateful thoughts went back to one of the crises in her life, the one from which Jefferson Craig had rescued her.
"Do you know the Ralph Hendersons? Married two years now--I'm sure you've heard me speak of them. Everybody knows they quarrel like cats and dogs; they're hardly civil to each other in public. And I know several more of our old set who are none too happy, if one may judge by their looks. Yet they all married 'in their own class,' as mother is so fond of saying, as if I didn't!--I married _above_ it! And I am supposed to have cast away all my chances for this life, not to mention the next, by marrying my farmer! Georgiana, I'm getting to hate that word _farmer_! Why isn't there a new word made for the man who reads and studies and uses the latest modern methods on his farm? There are such a lot of them now. College graduates, like Jimps, and men who have taken agricultural courses and are putting their brains into their work. Why isn't there a new word?"