and's side. So he said no more. The pair bowed their cheerful
thanks; but beside the cheer, or behind it, in the husband's face, was
there not the look of one who feels the odds against him? And yet, while
the two men's hands still held each other, the look vanished, and the
young man's light grasp had such firmness in it that, for this cause
also, the Doctor withheld his patronizing utterance. He believed he
would himself have resented it had he been in Richling's place.

The young pair passed on, and that night, as Dr. Sevier sat at his
fireside, an uncompanioned widower, he saw again the young wife look
quickly up into her husband's face, and across that face flit and
disappear its look of weary dismay, followed by the air of fresh courage
with which the young couple had said good-by.

"I wish I had spoken," he thought to himself; "I wish I had made the
offer."

And again:--

"I hope he didn't tell her what I said about the letters. Not but I was
right, but it'll only wound her."

But Richling had told her; he always "told her everything;" she could
not possibly have magnified wifehood more, in her way, than he did in
his. May be both ways were faulty; but they were extravagantly,
youthfully confident that they were not.

* * *

Unknown to Dr. Sevier, the Richlings had returned from their search
unsuccessful. Finding prices too much alike in Custom-house street they
turned into Burgundy. From Burgundy they passed into Du Maine. As they
went, notwithstanding disappointments, their mood grew gay and gayer.
Everything that met the eye was quaint and droll to them: men, women,
things, places,--all were more or less outlandish. The grotesqueness of
the African, and especially the French-tongued African, was to Mrs.
Richling particularly irresistible. Multiplying upon each and all of
these things was the ludicrousness of the pecuniary strait that brought
themselves and these things into contact. Everything turned to fun.

Mrs. Richling's mirthful mood prompted her by and by to begin letting
into her inquiries and comments covert double meanings, intended for her
husband's private understanding. Thus they crossed Bourbon street.

About there their mirth reached a climax; it was in a small house, a
sad, single-story thing, cowering between two high buildings, its eaves,
four or five feet deep, overshadowing its one street door and window.

"Looks like a shade for weak eyes," said the wife.

T