about it, but sitting down beside his mother, tried to
interest himself in the evening paper handed him by his grandfather.

"What have you done with your wife, young man?" asked his sister Elsie
sportively. "We have seen nothing of her since supper."

"I left her in her room," he answered in a tone in which there seemed a
shade of annoyance.

"Have you locked her up there for bad behavior?" asked Rosie, laughing.

"Why, what do you mean, Rosie?" he returned, giving the child a half-angry
glance, and coloring deeply.

"Oh, I was only funning, of course, Ned. So you needn't look so vexed
about it; that's the very way to excite suspicion that you have done
something to her," and Rosie laughed gleefully.

But to the surprise of mother and sisters, Edward's brow darkened, and he
made no reply.

"Rosie," said Violet, lightly, "you are an incorrigible tease. Let the
poor boy alone, can't you?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Raymond," he said, with a forced laugh, "but I wouldn't
have Rosie deprived of her sport."

"I hope," remarked Mrs. Travilla, with a kindly though grave look at her
youngest daughter, "that my Rosie does not find it sport to inflict
annoyance upon others."

"No, mamma, not by any means, but how could I suppose my wise oldest
brother would care for such a trifle?" returned the little girl in a
sprightly tone.

"My dear," said her mother, "it is the little things--little pleasures,
little vexations--that far more than the great make up the sum total of
our happiness or misery in this life."

Edward was very silent during the rest of the evening, and his mother,
watching him furtively and putting that and that together, felt sure that
something had gone wrong between him and his young wife.

When the good-nights had been said and the family had scattered to their
rooms, he lingered behind, and his mother, who had left the room,
perceiving it, returned to find him standing on the hearth, gazing moodily
into the fire.

She went to him, and laying her hand gently on his shoulder. "My dear
boy," she said, in her sweet low tones, "I cannot help seeing that
something has gone wrong with you; I don't ask what it is, but you have
your mother's sympathy in every trouble."

"It is unfortunately something you would not want me to repeat even to
you, my best and dearest of mothers, but your assurance of sympathy is
sweet and comforting, nevertheless," he said, taking her in his arms with
a look and manner so like