ent thing in woman."

After awhile, the voices came nearer, and he heard Farnham say:

"Come in here a moment, please, and see my new netsukes; I got them at
a funny little shop in Ostend. It was on a Sunday afternoon, and the
man of the house was keeping the shop, and I should have got a great
bargain out of him, but his wife came in before we were through, and
scolded him for an imbecile and sent him into the back room to tend the
baby, and made me pay twice what he had asked for my little monsters."

By this time they were all in the library, and the young lady was
laughing, not loudly, but musically, and Mrs. Belding was saying:

"Served you right for shopping on Sunday. But they are adorable little
images, for all that."

"Yes," said Farnham, "so the woman told me, and she added that they
were authentic of the twelfth century. I asked her if she could not
throw off a century or two in consideration of the hard, times, and she
laughed, and said I blagued, and honestly she didn't know how old they
were, but it was _drole, tout de meme, qu'on put adorer un petit bon
Dieu d'une laideur pareille._"

"Really, I don't see how they can do it," said Mrs. Belden, solemnly;
at which both the others laughed, and Miss Alice said, "Why, mamma, you
have just called them adorable yourself."

They went about the room, admiring, and touching, and wondering, with
the dainty grace of ladies accustomed to rare and beautiful things,
until the novelties were exhausted and they turned to go. But Budsey at
that moment announced luncheon, and they yielded to Farnham's eager
importunity, and remained to share his repast.

They went to the dining-room, leaving Sleeny more than content. He
still heard their voices, too distant to distinguish words; but he
pleased himself by believing that there was a tender understanding in
the tones of Farnham and Miss Belding when they addressed each other,
and that it was altogether a family party. He had no longer any feeling
of slight or neglect because none of them seemed aware of his presence
while they were in the room with him. There was, on the contrary, a
sort of comfort in the thought that he belonged to a different world
from them; that he and Maud were shut out--shut out together--from the
society and the interests which claimed the Beldings and the Farnhams.
"You was a dunderheaded fool," he said, cheerfully apostrophizing
himself again, "to think everybody was crazy after your girl."