l
about her shoulders. She was sewing upon a small piece of white material.

"Here, General, here," Gordon commanded, and the dog followed him
seriously into the room. "Pat him, Lettice, so's he'll get to know you,"
he urged.

"I don't think I want to," she began; but, at her husband's obvious
impatience, she experimented doubtfully, "Here, puppy."

"Can't you call him by his name?" he interrupted. "How ever'll he come to
know it?"

"I don't want to call him at all," she protested, a little wildly. "I
don't like him to-night; perhaps to-morrow I will feel different."

"Well, do or don't, that dog's a part of the house, and I don't want to
hear Mrs. Caley say this or that about it, neither."

"Mrs. Caley isn't as bad as you make her out; it's me she's thinking about
most of the time. I tell her men are not like women, they never think
about the little things we do. Father was like that ... you are too.
That's all the men I have known." Her voice trailed off into an abrupt
silence, she sat staring into the room with the needlework forgotten in
her hand.

Gordon turned to the dog, playing with him, pulling his ears. General
Jackson, in remonstrance, softly bit Gordon's hand. "That's a dandy dog.
Making yourself right at home, hey! Biting right back, are you! Let me
feel your teeth, phew--"

"Gordon," Lettice exclaimed suddenly in a throaty voice, "I'm afraid....
Tell me it will be all right, Gordon."

He looked up from the dog, startled by the unaccustomed vibration of her
tones. "Of course it will be all right," he reassured her hastily, making
an effort to keep his impatience from his voice; "I never guessed you were
so easy scared."

"I'll try not," she returned obediently. "Mrs. Caley says it will be all
right, too." She seemed, he thought, even younger than when he had married
her. She was absurdly girlish. It annoyed him; it seemed, unjustly, to
place too great a demand upon his forbearance, his patience. A wife should
be able to give and take--this was almost like having a child to tend.
Lately she had been frightened even at the dark, she had wakened him over
nothing at all, fancies.

He decided to pay no further attention to her imagining; and moved to the
phonograph, where he selected one of a small number of waxy cylinders.
"We'll see how the General likes music," he proclaimed. He slipped the
cylinder over a projection, and wound the mechanism. A sharp, high
scratching responded, as painful as a p