e ordering, and went forth herself each morning to market. She
accepted Ernestine's suggestions about where things could be bought
cheaply, and even condescended to enter the large department stores
where groceries were sold for cash at wholesale rates. The Laundryman
purchased all the supplies for her business, and she knew that buying
was a science and a game combined,--a very ancient game which is the
basis of "trade." She took it for granted that Milly would play the game
to the best advantage for all of them, and after a few attempts at the
old slovenly, wasteful method of providing, Milly accepted the situation
and did the best she knew how to meet Ernestine's idea. "Number 236" was
to be well stocked with an abundance of wholesome food, but there was to
be no waste and no "flummery." In a word, "efficiency."

There was almost no friction between them. It would seem that the
Laundryman knew how to be both gentle and firm,--the requisites, so the
sages say, for successful domesticity. Jack had often been not gentle
with Milly, and almost never firm. Milly did not take seriously his
constant complaint over bills, and in some way sooner or later got what
she wanted. With Ernestine it was quite different: she did not dare let
the accounts run on or run over. After the first few equivocations she
had her bills ready for examination by the first of the month, and they
were reasonably near the figures agreed upon. So, as Ernestine put it,
slapping her knee with the cheque-book, "it all goes as slick as paint."

* * * * *

And so, to sum it up in conventional terms, one might call Milly's new
marriage a success and expect that the modest little household of
"number 236" would go its peaceful way uneventfully to nature's
fulfilment of a comfortable middle age--and thus interest us no more.
For a time both Ernestine and Milly so believed it would be. But they
were deceived. Human affairs, even of the humblest, rarely arrange
themselves thus easily and logically.

Milly, in spite of her sincere resolve to be contented with what she
had, was growing restless. Once this orderly domestic life of the three
in the small house was running smoothly, she began to feel cramped, full
of unexpended energies. She would have spent them naturally in
entertaining and the usual social activity, to which she had become
accustomed as the fit expression of woman's life, but that obviously
could not be in the p