ot to feel flattered at the notice of sterile elegance,
not to be sneakingly glad of its amiability, but to stand up and look
at it with eyes on the same level. God, who made us so much like
himself, but out of the dust, alone knows when that struggle will end.
The time had been when Lapham could not have imagined any worldly
splendour which his dollars could not buy if he chose to spend them for
it; but his wife's half discoveries, taking form again in his ignorance
of the world, filled him with helpless misgiving. A cloudy vision of
something unpurchasable, where he had supposed there was nothing, had
cowed him in spite of the burly resistance of his pride.

"I don't see why he shouldn't be pleasant," said Mrs. Lapham. "He's
never done anything else."

Lapham looked up consciously, with an uneasy laugh. "Pshaw, Persis!
you never forget anything?"

"Oh, I've got more than that to remember. I suppose you asked him to
ride after the mare?"

"Well," said Lapham, reddening guiltily, "he said he was afraid of a
good horse."

"Then, of course, you hadn't asked him." Mrs. Lapham crocheted in
silence, and her husband leaned back in his chair and smoked.

At last he said, "I'm going to push that house forward. They're
loafing on it. There's no reason why we shouldn't be in it by
Thanksgiving. I don't believe in moving in the dead of winter."

"We can wait till spring. We're very comfortable in the old place,"
answered his wife. Then she broke out on him: "What are you in such a
hurry to get into that house for? Do you want to invite the Coreys to a
house-warming?"

Lapham looked at her without speaking.

"Don't you suppose I can see through you I declare, Silas Lapham, if I
didn't know different, I should say you were about the biggest fool!
Don't you know ANYthing? Don't you know that it wouldn't do to ask
those people to our house before they've asked us to theirs? They'd
laugh in our faces!"

"I don't believe they'd laugh in our faces. What's the difference
between our asking them and their asking us?" demanded the Colonel
sulkily.

"Oh, well! If you don t see!"

"Well, I DON'T see. But I don't want to ask them to the house. I
suppose, if I want to, I can invite him down to a fish dinner at
Taft's."

Mrs. Lapham fell back in her chair, and let her work drop in her lap
with that "Tckk!" in which her sex knows how to express utter contempt
and despair.

"What's the matter?"

"Well, if you DO