aid the latter. "Her ideals are a fixed quantity now,
to be reckoned with. So are his. Under any conditions there would be
absolute diversity of tastes."

"I don't think there's any ideal more hopelessly fixed than the fine
clothes ideal." The Skeptic looked at his wife.

"I like nice clothes," said she, smiling at him.

"So you do," he rejoined; "thank heaven! A woman who doesn't is
abnormal. But when we walk down certain streets together you can see
something besides the shop-windows."

"I look away so I won't want the things," confessed Hepatica.

The Skeptic laughed, and the Philosopher and I joined him.

"I passed Mrs. Hepatica the other day when she didn't see me," said the
Philosopher to me. "She was staring fixedly in at a shop-window. I stole
up behind her to see what held such an attraction for her.--It often
lets a great light in on a friend's character, if you can see the
particular object in a shop-window which fixes his longing attention.
When I had discovered what she was looking at I stole away again,
chuckling to myself."

"What was it?" I asked.

"I'll wager half I own that the wife of our friend the Judge wouldn't
have given that window a second glance," pursued the Philosopher.

"It was probably a bargain sale of paper patterns," guessed the Skeptic.
But we knew he didn't think it.

"A bargain sale of groceries, more likely," said Hepatica herself.

"It was no bargain sale of anything," denied the Philosopher. "It was a
most expensive edition of the works of Charles Dickens."

"Good for you, Patty!" cried the Skeptic.

III

AZALEA AND THE CASHIER

A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.
--_S. T. Coleridge._

"I am to spend the day with Azalea to-morrow," I announced, as I said
good night, one evening, "and I shall not come back until so late that
you mustn't sit up for me. Azalea couldn't ask me to stay all night, on
account of using the guest-room for a nursery during the winter, but
she's very anxious to have me there in the evening, for it's the only
chance I shall have to see her husband."

"Remain late enough to see her husband, by all means," urged the
Skeptic. "I want to hear what sort of man had the courage to marry a
musical genius who could wipe only one teaspoon at a time."

"Azalea was a lovely girl," said Hepatica warmly. "It couldn't take much
courage to marry her."

"All right--we'll hear about it when our guest comes back. An