of cheating somewhere--and--you understand."

Agatha did not understand one jot. All she drew from this confused
volubility was the fact that Major Harper had somehow lost money, for
which she was very sorry. But to her utter ignorance of financial or
business matters the term "losing money" bore very little meaning.
However, she recurred with satisfaction to her own reputed wealth, and
thought if Major Harper were in any need he would of course tell his
brother, and she and Nathanael could at once supply what he wanted.
She determined to speak to her husband the first opportunity, and so
dismissed the subject, as being not half so interesting as that of "the
new house."

At the gate of this the two ladies now stood, and Emma, with a matronly
importance, introduced the gratified young wife to all its perfections.

If there be one instinct that lurks in a woman's breast, ready to
spring up when touched, and bloom into all sorts of beautiful and
happy feelings, it is the sense of home--of pleasant domestic sway and
domestic comfort--the looking forward to "a house of one's own." Many
ordinary girls marry for nothing but this; and in the nobler half
of their sex even amidst the strongest and most romantic personal
attachment there is a something--a vague, dear hope, that, flying beyond
the lover and the bridegroom, nestles itself in the husband and the
future home.--The home as well as the husband, since it is given by him,
is loved for his sake, and made beautiful for his comfort, while he is
the ruler, the guide, and the centre of all.

Mrs. Harper, as she went through the rooms of this, the first house
she had ever looked on with an eye of interest, admiring some things,
objecting to others, and beginning to arrange and decide in her own
mind,--felt the awakening of that feeling which philosophers call "the
domestic instinct"--the instinct which makes of women good wives, fond
mothers, and wise mistresses of pleasant households. She wondered that,
as Agatha Bowen, she had thought so little of these things.

"Yes," said she, brightening up as she listened to Emma's long-winded
discourse upon furniture and arrangements, and learning for the first
time to appreciate the capital good sense of that admirable domestic
oracle and young housekeeper's guide--"Yes, I think this will just do.
And, as you say, we easily manage to buy it, furniture and all, so as to
make what improvements we choose. Oh, how delicious it will be