ooms that Dick
had fitted up for her in fashion more modern than the somber dignity of
the rest of the house. Here was another new sensation--a household
without bickerings. The elder Mrs. Percival, having accepted the
situation, was no niggard in her spirit of courtesy, but very gracious
as was her wont, and Lena was astonished to find that she and her new
mother-in-law ran their respective lines without collisions. The
half-invalid older woman breakfasted in her own room and occupied
herself with quiet readings and sewings and drivings, but when she did
appear on the family horizon, it was always as a beneficent presence.

Lena purred in the presence of comfort; but when you see a kitten
serenely snoozing before the fire, it does not do to leap to the
conclusion that this kitten would not know what was expected of her on
the back fence at midnight.

If storm and stress should ever come, Dick had himself helped her to
feel that beauty would fill the measure, wherever it fell short; that
however she might sin, beauty was her sufficient apology.

Mrs. Quincy, established in a little flat with a middle-aged submissive
slavey, was as nearly reconciled to fate as her nature would allow. Her
rooms were pleasantly furnished, but Lena's mother was full of the
genius of discord, and almost automatically she so rearranged her
surroundings that each particular article made strife with its neighbor.
Harmony and Mrs. Quincy could not live in the same house. When Lena paid
her duty visits (and she was irritated at the frequency with which
Dick's and Madame Percival's expectations seemed to exact them) she had
not only to listen in nauseated impatience to Mrs. Quincy's minute
questions and comments on people and things, but she had also to feel
her rapidly-developing tastes offended by her mother's domestic order.

"Miss Elton's real kind. She's been here twice since you was here. And
she brought flowers."

"Mother! And did you have a newspaper on top of that pretty little
table?"

"Land sakes! And if I didn't I should have to watch Sarah every minute
to see she didn't put something hot on it or scratch the mahogany top. I
can't afford to have everything I've got spoiled. No knowin' when I'll
git anything more--dependent as I am on other people."

"I'll bring you a pretty table-cover then."

"I'd like a red one. But I didn't suppose you'd think of gittin' one."

"Oh, mother, red wouldn't look well in this room."

"Now, I