Almost every day she spent hours in driving and sailing, and as the season advanced she began to take ocean baths, which on that genial coast are suitable almost all the year round.

Going thus to nature for healing, she did not appeal in vain.

Strength and grace were bestowed imperceptibly, yet surely, as spring clothes the leafless tree.
A love such as had grown unbidden and unconsciously in Madge's heart could not be content with the meagre reward of a little admiration.
Such an affection was softening and ennobling in its character, and the mere desire to compel Graydon to glance at her as she had seen him look at Miss Wildmere grew into the higher ambition to become such a woman as would approach in some degree his ideal.

She knew his tastes, and as she thought over the past she believed she could gauge his character as could no other.

She soon recognized that he was not an exceptional man, that she was not worshipping a hero.