COMMUTER'S WIFE 321 



and mismatch its colour. For to a vague thing to 

 which, when kind, she referred as Providence, and 

 when harsh, Fate, she attributes all events, with the 

 superstition of Delia or Mrs. Mullins, and never 

 arraigns herself for errors or deems her judgments 

 impeachable. 



Fate came a-wooing in the form of the serious 

 and really fine-looking young doctor of the hospi- 

 tal, upon whom at the time the Village Liar fixed 

 her suspicions. For a year Dora and he were 

 much together. It was really the first time that 

 she, in her narrow, suburban life, had come under 

 the influence of a man evidently much more than 

 her equal, and near her own age, she being, perhaps, 

 two years his senior. 



She justified the acquaintance to herself and jug- 

 gled with its reality by calling it friendship. He 

 did not, and the moment that he had secured a 

 footing on the professional ladder, a good opening 

 in a distant city, he told her in all sincerity that 

 he now might ask her for the promise that it would 

 have been selfish and one-sided to have expected 

 before; he being frank and simple-minded, never 

 for a moment doubted that she was as single- 

 hearted as he himself. 



She really did love him, that is, as far as she 



