ly table, save that Margaret now had her morning chocolate abed.

"I must initiate myself into London ways, dear," she said, gaily, when
Fanny remarked how strange this new habit was in a girl who had never
been indolent or given to late rising.

"How pretty the blue brocaded satin is!" quoth Fanny, looking at one
of Margaret's new gowns hanging in a closet. "Why didn't you wear it
at the Watts' dinner yesterday? And your brown velvet--you've not had
it on since it came from the dressmaker's."

"I shall wear them in London," says Margaret.

And so it was with her in everything. She saved her finest clothes,
her smiles, her very interest in life, her capacity for enjoyment, all
for London. And Philip, perceiving her indifference to the outside
world, her new equability of temper, her uniform softness of
demeanour, her constant meditative half-smile due to pleasurable
dreams of the future, read all these as tokens of blissful content
like that which glowed in his own heart. And he was supremely happy.
'Tis well for a man to have two months of such happiness, to balance
against later years of sorrow; but sad will that happiness be in the
memory, if it owe itself to the person to whom the sorrow in its train
is due.

She would watch for him at the window, in the afternoon, when he came
home from the warehouse; and would be waiting at the parlour door as
he entered the hall. With his arm about her, he would lead her to a
sofa, and they would sit talking for a few minutes before he prepared
for supper--for 'twas only on great occasions that the Faringfields
dined at five o'clock, as did certain wealthy New York families who
followed the London mode.

"I am so perfectly, entirely, completely, utterly happy!" was the
burden of Phil's low-spoken words.

"Fie!" said Margaret, playfully, one evening. "You must not be
perfectly happy. There must be some cloud in the sky; some annoyance
in business, or such trifle. Perfect happiness is dangerous, mamma
says. It can't last. It forbodes calamity to come. 'Tis an old belief,
and she vows 'tis true."

"Why, my poor mother held that belief, too. I fear she had little
perfect happiness to test it by; but she had calamities enough. And
Bert Russell's mother was saying the same thing the other day. 'Tis a
delusion common to mothers, I think. I sha'n't let it affect my
felicity. I should be ungrateful to call my contentment less than
perfect. And if calamity comes, 'twill not be ow