bal attacks. He had learned to
meet domestic broadsides with a shield of impenetrable good humor, or at
the most with a return fire of mild sarcasm.

"I never hear of a woman doctor if it can be avoided."

"Dr. Gates--Anna Gates?"

"There are a number here. I meet them in the hospital, but I don't know
their names."

"Where does Peter Byrne live?"

"In a pension, I believe, my dear. Are we going to have anything to eat
or do we sup of Peter Byrne?"

Mrs. Boyer made no immediate reply. She repaired to the bedroom of Marie
Jedlicka, and placed her hat, coat and furs on one of the beds with the
crocheted coverlets. It is a curious thing about rooms. There was no
change in the bedroom apparent to the eye, save that for Marie's tiny
slippers at the foot of the wardrobe there were Mrs. Boyer's substantial
house shoes. But in some indefinable way the room had changed. About it
hung an atmosphere of solid respectability, of impeccable purity that
soothed Mrs. Boyer's ruffled virtue into peace. Is it any wonder that
there is a theory to the effect that things take on the essential
qualities of people who use them, and that we are haunted by things, not
people? That when grandfather's wraith is seen in his old armchair it
is the chair that produces it, while grandfather himself serenely haunts
the shades of some vast wilderness of departed spirits?

Not that Mrs. Boyer troubled herself about such things. She was
exceedingly orthodox, even in the matter of a hereafter, where the most
orthodox are apt to stretch a point, finding no attraction whatever in
the thing they are asked to believe. Mrs. Boyer, who would have regarded
it as heterodox to substitute any other instrument for the harp of her
expectation, tied on her gingham apron before Marie Jedlicka's mirror,
and thought of Harmony and of the girls at home.

She told her husband over the supper-table and found him less shocked
than she had expected.

"It's not your affair or mine," he said. "It's Byrne's business."

"Think of the girl!"

"Even if you are right it's rather late, isn't it?"

"You could tell him what you think of him."

Dr. Boyer sighed over a cup of very excellent coffee. Much living with a
representative male had never taught his wife the reserves among members
of the sex masculine.

"I might, but I don't intend to," he said. "And if you listen to me
you'll keep the thing to yourself."

"I'll take precious good care that the girl gets no pup