e sufficient. To all appearances, she found genuine and
unfailing satisfaction in the exercise of benevolent sympathies.

'Alma will not come down,' was her remark, as she entered. 'A little
headache--nothing. We are to send her some tea and dry toast.'

'I thought she didn't seem quite herself last night,' said Harvey, as
he cut into a ham.

Mrs. Frothingham made no remark, but smiled discreetly, taking a place
at the head of the table.

'We shall have to go somewhere,' Harvey continued. 'It has been a long
winter. She begins to feel dull, I'm afraid.'

'A little, perhaps. But she's quite well--it's nothing----'

'Why won't she go on with her water-colours? She was beginning to do
really good things--then all at once gives it up.'

'Oh, she must! I think those last sketches simply wonderful. Anyone
would suppose she had worked at it all her life, instead of just a few
months. How very clever she is!'

'Alma can do anything,' said Harvey, with genial conviction.

'Almost anything, I really think. Now _don't_ let her lose interest in
it, as she did in her music. You have only to show that you think her
drawings good, and speak about them. She depends rather upon
encouragement.'

'I know. But it wasn't for lack of _my_ encouragement that she dropped
her violin.'

'So unfortunate! Oh, she'll come back to it, I'm sure.'

When Mrs. Frothingham paid her first visit to the newly-married couple,
it amused her to find a state of things differing considerably from her
anxious expectations. True, they had only one servant within doors, the
woman named Ruth, but she did not represent the whole establishment.
Having bought a horse and trap, and not feeling called upon to act as
groom, Harvey had engaged a man, who was serviceable in various
capacities; moreover, a lad made himself useful about the premises
during the day. Ruth was a tolerable cook, and not amiss as a
housemaid. Then, the furnishing of the house, though undeniably
'simple', left little to be desired; only such things were eschewed as
serve no rational purpose and are mostly in people's way. Alma, as
could at once be perceived, ran no risk of overexerting herself in
domestic duties; she moved about of mornings with feather-brush, and
occasionally plied an unskilful needle, but kitchenward she never
turned her steps. Imprudently, Mrs. Frothingham remarked that this
life, after all, much resembled that of other people; whereat Alma
betrayed a serious anno