d
out, when the minister and his wife stopped at Lapham on their way
across from the White Mountains to Lake Champlain; Lapham had found
them on the cars, and pressed them to stop off.

There were times when Mrs. Lapham had as great pride in the
clean-handedness with which Lapham had come out as he had himself, but
her satisfaction was not so constant. At those times, knowing the
temptations he had resisted, she thought him the noblest and grandest
of men; but no woman could endure to live in the same house with a
perfect hero, and there were other times when she reminded him that if
he had kept his word to her about speculating in stocks, and had looked
after the insurance of his property half as carefully as he had looked
after a couple of worthless women who had no earthly claim on him, they
would not be where they were now. He humbly admitted it all, and left
her to think of Rogers herself. She did not fail to do so, and the
thought did not fail to restore him to her tenderness again.

I do not know how it is that clergymen and physicians keep from telling
their wives the secrets confided to them; perhaps they can trust their
wives to find them out for themselves whenever they wish. Sewell had
laid before his wife the case of the Laphams after they came to consult
with him about Corey's proposal to Penelope, for he wished to be
confirmed in his belief that he had advised them soundly; but he had
not given her their names, and he had not known Corey's himself. Now
he had no compunctions in talking the affair over with her without the
veil of ignorance which she had hitherto assumed, for she declared that
as soon as she heard of Corey's engagement to Penelope, the whole thing
had flashed upon her. "And that night at dinner I could have told the
child that he was in love with her sister by the way he talked about
her; I heard him; and if she had not been so blindly in love with him
herself, she would have known it too. I must say, I can't help feeling
a sort of contempt for her sister."

"Oh, but you must not!" cried Sewell. "That is wrong, cruelly wrong.
I'm sure that's out of your novel-reading, my dear, and not out of your
heart. Come! It grieves me to hear you say such a thing as that."

"Oh, I dare say this pretty thing has got over it--how much character
she has got!--and I suppose she'll see somebody else."

Sewell had to content himself with this partial concession. As a
matter of fact, unless