oss. But to explain would be to risk rousing in him an
even deeper anger--anger on account of his friend Whitney; so, without
another word, Scarborough bowed and went. "Either he will be apologizing
to me at the end of three months," said he to himself, "or I shall be
apologizing to Whitney and shall owe Tecumseh a large sum of money."

* * * * *

Both Madelene and Arthur had that instinct for comfort and luxury which
is an even larger factor in advancement than either energy or
intelligence. The idea that clothing means something more than warmth,
food something more than fodder, a house something more than shelter, is
the beginning of progress; the measure of a civilized man or woman is the
measure of his or her passion for and understanding of the art of living.

Madelene, by that right instinct which was perhaps the finest part of her
sane and strong character, knew what comfort really means, knew the
difference between luxury and the showy vulgarity of tawdriness or
expensiveness; and she rapidly corrected, or, rather, restored, Arthur's
good taste, which had been vitiated by his associations with fashionable
people, whose standards are necessarily always poor. She was devoted to
her profession as a science; but she did not neglect the vital material
considerations. She had too much self-respect to become careless about
her complexion or figure, about dress or personal habits, even if she had
not had such shrewd insight into what makes a husband remain a lover, a
wife a mistress. She had none of those self-complacent delusions which
lure vain women on in slothfulness until Love vacates his neglected
temple. And in large part, no doubt, Arthur's appearance--none of the
stains and patches of the usual workingman, and this though he worked
hard at manual labor and in a shop--was due to her influence of example;
he, living with such a woman, would have been ashamed not to keep "up to
the mark." Also her influence over old Mrs. Ranger became absolute; and
swiftly yet imperceptibly the house, which had so distressed Adelaide,
was transformed, not into the exhibit of fashionable ostentation which
had once been Adelaide's and Arthur's ideal, but into a house of comfort
and beauty, with colors harmonizing, the look of newness gone from the
"best rooms," and finally the "best rooms" themselves abolished. And
Ellen thought herself chiefly responsible for the change. "I'm gradually
getting thing