irely unnecessary. When they were in the street, walking at a slow
pace, the lady, in her close, confiding way, said:

"Do you know, I take a great fancy to Mrs. Belcher?"

"Do you, really?"

"Yes, indeed. I think she's lovely; but I'm afraid she doesn't like me.
I can read--oh, I can read pretty well. She certainly didn't like it
that I had arranged everything and was there to meet her. But wasn't she
tired? Wasn't she very tired? There certainly was something that was
wrong."

"I think your imagination had something to do with it," said Mr.
Belcher, although he knew that she was right.

"No, I can read;" and Mrs. Dillingham's voice trembled. "If she could
only know how honestly I have tried to serve her, and how disappointed I
am that my service has not been taken in good part, I am sure that her
amiable heart would forgive me."

Mrs. Dillingham took out her handkerchief, near a street lamp, and wiped
her eyes.

What could Mr. Belcher do with this beautiful, susceptible, sensitive
creature? What could he do but reassure her? Under the influence of her
emotion, his wife's offense grew flagrant, and he began by apologizing
for her, and ended by blaming her.

"Oh! she was tired--she was very tired. That was all. I've laid up
nothing against her; but you know I was disappointed, after I had done
so much. I shall be all over it in the morning, and she will see it
differently then. I don't know but I should have been troubled to find
a stranger in my house. I think I should. Now, you really must promise
not to say a word of all this talk to your poor wife. I wouldn't have
you do it for the world. If you are my friend (pressing his arm), you
will let the matter drop just where it is. Nothing would induce me to be
the occasion of any differences in your home."

So it was a brave, true, magnanimous nature that was leaning so tenderly
upon Mr. Belcher's arm! And he felt that no woman who was not either
shabbily perverse, or a fool, could misinterpret her. He knew that his
wife had been annoyed at finding Mrs. Dillingham in the house. He dimly
comprehended, too, that her presence was an indelicate intrusion, but
her intentions were so good!

Mrs. Dillingham knew exactly how to manipulate the coarse man at her
side, and her relations to him and his wife. Her bad wisdom was not the
result of experience, though she had had enough of it, but the product
of an instinct which was just as acute, and true, and serviceable, t