No philosophical writer has as yet made the attempt to define the
change--as profound as that of the tadpole to the frog--between the
lover and the husband. An author of ideals would not dare to proclaim
that this change is inevitable: some husbands--and some wives are
fortunate enough to escape it, but it is not unlikely to happen in
our modern civilization. Just when it occurred in Howard Spence it
is difficult to say, but we have got to consider him henceforth as
a husband; one who regards his home as a shipyard rather than the
sanctuary of a goddess; as a launching place, the ways of which are
carefully greased, that he may slide off to business every morning with
as little friction as possible, and return at night to rest undisturbed
in a comfortable berth, to ponder over the combat of the morrow.

It would be inspiring to summon the vision of Honora, in rustling
garments, poised as the figurehead of this craft, beckoning him on to
battle and victory. Alas! the launching happened at that grimmest and
most unromantic of hours-ten minutes of eight in the morning. There
was a period, indeterminate, when she poured out his coffee with wifely
zeal; a second period when she appeared at the foot of the stairs to
kiss him as he was going out of the door; a third when, clad in an
attractive dressing-gown, she waved him good-by from the window; and
lastly, a fourth, which was only marked by an occasional protest on his
part, when the coffee was weak.

"I'd gladly come down, Howard, if it seemed to make the least difference
to you," said Honora. "But all you do is to sit with your newspaper
propped up and read the stock reports, and growl when I ask you a polite
question. You've no idea how long it makes the days out here, to get up
early."

"It seems to me you put in a good many days in town," he retorted.

"Surely you don't expect me to spend all my time in Rivington!" she
cried reproachfully; "I'd die. And then I am always having to get new
cooks for you, because they can't make Hollandaise sauce like hotel
chefs. Men have no idea how hard it is to keep house in the country,--I
just wish you had to go to those horrid intelligence offices. You
wouldn't stay in Rivington ten days. And all the good cooks drink."

Howard, indeed, with the aid of the village policeman, had had to expel
from his kitchen one imperious female who swore like a dock hand,
and who wounded Honora to the quick by remarking, as she departed in
d