stagnant surface. Mrs. Elmore read it first to herself, with gasps and
cries of pleasure and astonishment, which did not divert her husband
from the perusal of some notes he had made the day before, and had
brought to the breakfast-table with the intention of amusing her. When
she flattened it out over his notes, and exacted his attention, he
turned an unwilling and lack-lustre eye upon it; then he looked up at
her.

"Did you expect she would come?" he asked, in ill-masked dismay.

"I don't suppose they had any idea of it at first. When Sue wrote me
that Lily had been studying too hard, and had to be taken out of school,
I said that I wished she could come over and pay us a visit. But I don't
believe they dreamed of letting her--Sue says so--till the Mortons'
coming seemed too good a chance to be lost. I am so glad of it, Owen!
You know how much they have always done for me; and here is a chance now
to pay a little of it back."

"What in the world shall we do with her?" he asked.

"Do? Everything! Why, Owen," she urged, with pathetic recognition of his
coldness, "she is Susy Stevens's own sister!"

"Oh, yes--yes," he admitted.

"And it was Susy who brought us together!"

"Why, of course."

"And oughtn't you to be glad of the opportunity?"

"I _am_ glad--_very_ glad."

"It will be a relief to you instead of a care. She's such a bright,
intelligent girl that we can both sympathize with your work, and you
won't have to go round with me all the time, and I can matronize her
myself."

"I see, I see," Elmore replied, with scarcely abated seriousness.
"Perhaps, if she is coming here for her health, she won't need much
matronizing."

"Oh, pshaw! She'll be well enough for _that_! She's overdone a little at
school. I shall take good care of her, I can tell you; and I shall make
her have a real good time. It's quite flattering of Susy to trust her
to us, so far away, and I shall write and tell her we both think so."

"Yes," said Elmore, "it's a fearful responsibility."

There are instances of the persistence of husbands in certain moods or
points of view on which even wheedling has no effect. The wise woman
perceives that in these cases she must trust entirely to the softening
influences of time, and as much as possible she changes the subject; or
if this is impossible she may hope something from presenting a still
worse aspect of the affair. Mrs. Elmore said, in lifting the letter from
the table: "If she sailed