d a muff? and what a jolly little Mrs. Muff you will be!" he
said, pinching her cheek.

"You needn't laugh, John," said Lillie, pouting. "You don't know how
things look in fashionable circles. The Follingsbees are in the very
highest circle. They have lived in Paris, and been invited by the
Emperor."

"I haven't much opinion of Americans who live in Paris and are invited
by the Emperor," said John. "But, be that as it may, I shall do the
best I can for them, and Mr. Young says, 'angels could no more;' so,
good-by, puss: I must go to my office; and don't let's talk about this
any more."

And John put on his cap and squared his broad shoulders, and, marching
off with a resolute stride, went to his office, and had a most
uncomfortable morning of it. You see, my dear friends, that though
Nature has set the seal of sovereignty on man, in broad shoulders and
bushy beard; though he fortify and incase himself in rough overcoats
and heavy boots, and walk with a dashing air, and whistle like a
freeman, we all know it is not an easy thing to wage a warfare with
a pretty little creature in lace cap and tiny slippers, who has a
faculty of looking very pensive and grieved, and making up a sad
little mouth, as if her heart were breaking.

John never doubted that he was right, and in the way of duty; and yet,
though he braved it out so stoutly with Lillie, and though he marched
out from her presence victoriously, as it were, with drums beating and
colors flying, yet there was a dismal sinking of heart under it.

"I'm right; I know I am. Of course I can't give up here; it's a matter
of principle, of honor," he said over and over to himself. "Perhaps if
Lillie had been here I never should have taken such a pledge; but as I
have, there's no help for it."

Then he thought of what Lillie had suggested about it's looking
niggardly in hospitality, and was angry with himself for feeling
uncomfortable. "What do I care what Dick Follingsbee thinks?" said he
to himself: "a man that I despise; a cheat, and a swindler,--a man of
no principle. Lillie doesn't know the sacrifice it is to me to have
such people in my house at all. Hang it all! I wish Lillie was a
little more like the women I've been used to,--like Grace and Rose and
my mother. But, poor thing, I oughtn't to blame her, after all, for
her unfortunate bringing up. But it's so nice to be with women that
can understand the grounds you go on. A man never wants to fight a
woman. I'd r