partments they had tried
during the less than four years of their married life. Carey believed with
all his heart that their only chance for happiness lay in getting away
from a manner of living which was using up every penny he could earn
without giving them either satisfaction or comfort. His salary would not
permit him to rent the sort of thing in the sort of neighbourhood which
Judith longed for. And if it should, he did not believe his wife would
find such environments any more congenial than the present one. Carey had
a theory that a woman, like a man, must be busy to be contented. He meant
to try it with his handsome, discontented wife.

"Oh, what a pretty hall!" cried Mrs. Robeson, with enthusiasm. "How lucky
that the vandals who made the house over didn't lay their desecrating
hands on that staircase."

"The hall looks gloomy to me," said Mrs. Carey, with a disapproving glance
at the walls.

"Of course--with that dingy brown paper and the woodwork stained that
hideous imitation of oak. You can scrape all that off, paint it white, put
on a warm, rich paper, restore your fanlight, and you'll have a
particularly attractive hall."

"I wish I could see things that are not visible, as you seem to be able
to," sighed Judith, looking unconvinced. "I never did like a long,
straight staircase like that. And there's not room to make a turn."

"You don't want to, do you? It's so wide and low it doesn't need to turn,
and the posts and rails are extremely good. How about this front room?"

She stood in the center of the front room, and the two men, watching her
vivid face as it glowed above her furs, noting the capable, womanly way
she had of looking at the best side of everything and discerning in a
flash of imagination and intuition what could be done with unpromising
material, appreciated her with that full masculine appreciation which it
is so well worth the trouble of any woman to win.

Judith was not blind; she saw little by little as Juliet went from room to
room--seizing in each upon its possibilities, ignoring its poorer features
except to suggest their betterment, giving her whole-hearted, friendly
counsel in a way which continually took the prospective homemakers into
consideration--that she herself was losing something immeasurably valuable
in not attempting to cultivate these same winning characteristics. And in
the same breath Judith was forced to admit to herself that she did not
know how to begin.

"