l irritation and
disgust.

"But, Arthur!--you could get them _all_ at the London Library--you know
you could!"

"And pray how much time do I waste in going backwards and forwards after
books? Any man of letters worth his salt wants a library of his
own--within reach of his hand."

"Yes, if he can pay for it!" said Doris, with plaintive emphasis, as she
ruefully turned over the costly volumes which the parcel contained.

"Don't fash yourself, my dear child! Why, what I'm getting for the Dizzy
lecture is alone nearly enough to pay all the book bills."

"It isn't! And just think of all the others! Well--never mind!"

Doris's protesting mood suddenly collapsed. She sat down on a stool
beside her husband, rested her elbow on his knee, and, chin in hand,
surveyed him with a softened countenance. Doris Meadows was not a
beauty; only pleasant-faced, with good eyes, and a strong, expressive
mouth. Her brown hair was perhaps her chief point, and she wore it
rippled and coiled so as to set off a shapely head and neck. It was
always a secret grievance with her that she had so little positive
beauty. And her husband had never flattered her on the subject. In the
early days of their marriage she had timidly asked him, after
one of their bridal dinner-parties in which she had worn her
wedding-dress--"Did I look nice to-night? Do you--do you ever think I
look pretty, Arthur?" And he had looked her over, with an odd change of
expression--careless affection passing into something critical and
cool:--"I'm never ashamed of you, Doris, in any company. Won't you be
satisfied with that?" She had been far from satisfied; the phrase had
burnt in her memory from then till now. But she knew Arthur had not
meant to hurt her, and she bore him no grudge. And, by now, she was too
well acquainted with the rubs and prose of life, too much occupied with
house-books, and rough servants, and the terror of an overdrawn account,
to have any time or thought to spare to her own looks. Fortunately she
had an instinctive love for neatness and delicacy; so that her little
figure, besides being agile and vigorous--capable of much dignity too on
occasion--was of a singular trimness and grace in all its simple
appointments. Her trousseau was long since exhausted, and she rarely had
a new dress. But slovenly she could not be.

It was the matter of a new dress which was now indeed running in her
mind. She took up Lady Dunstable's letter, and read it pensively