. I'm jealous of it."

"You needn't be."

She was still smiling at his sulky face.

"Yes, I do need ... you put it before me."

"Now, Morris...."

"Yes, 'Now, Morris'.... 'Now, Morris'...." (He mimicked her reproachful
tone.) "It's always 'Now, Morris' when I want what belongs to me...."

"Oh! So I 'belong' to you, do I?" she teased affectionately.

"Yes! By gad, you do! You married me.... You're my wife. A wife should
stay with her husband. You do belong to me."

He had his "Marmion" tone very pronouncedly.

Sophy said prettily:

"I think it would be truer to say we both 'belong.'"

"Well.... _I'm_ not leaving _you_, am I?"

She reached out and took the sulky, cleft chin between her finger and
thumb.

"Poor sing! Did dey 'buse it?" she said, as she addressed Dhu when he
had one of his fits of collie-melancholy. But Loring jerked away his
chin.

"Please don't treat me like a baby," he said stiffly. "I'm very far from
feeling like one."

Sophy pondered a moment. Then she said:

"I hate to remind people of promises ... but you'll remember that you
promised me I should have some time, every year, to myself----"

"You're tired of me already--is that it?"

"Now, dear--how am I to keep from treating you like a baby, when you act
so exactly like one?"

"It's babyish for a man to want his wife with him, is it?"

"Isn't it rather babyish of him not to want her to take one little month
to rest in and see her own people?"

"I thought my people were to be your people like the woman in the
Bible?"

"So they are ... but I've seen them all winter."

"Tired of us all, eh?"

Sophy said nothing in reply to this.

"Oh, well!" he exclaimed angrily, flouncing to the door. "If the new
salt has lost its savour--go to your old salt-lick----"

He bounced out, clapping the door. It was the first coarse thing he had
ever said to her. She felt indignant as well as hurt. But when she
reflected that his ill temper came from jealousy she was sorry for him,
too.

"But I must go all the same," she reflected. "If I give in this time, I
can never call my soul my own again."

She left for Virginia two days later, taking Bobby with her. She and
Loring had not quite "made up" before she left. They were very polite to
each other. Sophy's heart felt sore. This attitude of his was spoiling
her visit home. She thought that he would surely soften before the train
drew out. But he did not.

He lifted his hat as the engine b