ow they're as thick as thieves. Well, I reckon we
couldn't very well 'a' got along without her. She's about the only one
that speaks French in this family."

Mrs. March's eyes still dwelt upon Christine's face; it was full of a
furtive wildness. She seemed to be keeping a watch to prevent herself
from looking as if she were looking for some one. "Do you know," Mrs.
March said to her husband as they jingled along homeward in the
Christopher Street bob-tail car, "I thought she was in love with that
detestable Mr. Beaton of yours at one time; and that he was amusing
himself with her."

"I can bear a good deal, Isabel," said March, "but I wish you wouldn't
attribute Beaton to me. He's the invention of that Mr. Fulkerson of
yours."

"Well, at any rate, I hope, now, you'll both get rid of him, in the
reforms you're going to carry out."

These reforms were for a greater economy in the management of 'Every
Other Week;' but in their very nature they could not include the
suppression of Beaton. He had always shown himself capable and loyal to
the interests of the magazine, and both the new owners were glad to keep
him. He was glad to stay, though he made a gruff pretence of
indifference, when they came to look over the new arrangement with him.
In his heart he knew that he was a fraud; but at least he could say to
himself with truth that he had not now the shame of taking Dryfoos's
money.

March and Fulkerson retrenched at several points where it had seemed
indispensable to spend, as long as they were not spending their own: that
was only human. Fulkerson absorbed Conrad's department into his, and
March found that he could dispense with Kendricks in the place of
assistant which he had lately filled since Fulkerson had decided that
March was overworked. They reduced the number of illustrated articles,
and they systematized the payment of contributors strictly according to
the sales of each number, on their original plan of co-operation: they
had got to paying rather lavishly for material without reference to the
sales.

Fulkerson took a little time to get married, and went on his wedding
journey out to Niagara, and down the St. Lawrence to Quebec over the line
of travel that the Marches had taken on their wedding journey. He had the
pleasure of going from Montreal to Quebec on the same boat on which he
first met March.

They have continued very good friends, and their wives are almost without
the rivalry that usually emb