, John has kept the grounds looking well,
hasn't he? The lawn doesn't seem to have a weed on it," said
Bessie, walking to the window and gazing out at the soft velvety
sward in the glow of twilight.

"Yes, it looks pretty well; but there's a small heap of stuff over
there near the fence which rather inclines me to believe that the
weeds have been pulled out within the last few days--in fact, since
you wrote to announce our return. John is an energetic man in an
emergency, and I haven't a doubt he has been here at least once a
week ever since we left. I'll keep a record of John this fall."

And so the two contented home-comers talked happily along, and when
they closed their eyes in sleep that night they were, upon the
whole, very well satisfied with life.

Weeks elapsed, and with them some of the air-castles collapsed.
Whether custom staled the infinite variety of the cook's virtues,
and age withered the efficiency of Mary, the waitress, or whether
something was really and radically wrong with the girls, Thaddeus
and Bessie could not make out. Certain it was, however, that by
slow degrees the satisfaction for which that first dinner seemed to
stand as guarantor wore away, and dissatisfaction entered the
household. Mary developed a fondness for church at most
inconvenient hours--hours at which in fact, neither Thaddeus nor
Bessie had ever supposed church could be. That it was eternal they
both knew, but they had always supposed there were intermissions.
Then the cook's family, which had hitherto been moderately
healthful, began to show signs of invalidism, though no such
calamity as actual dissolution ever set its devastating step within
the charmed circle of her relatives. Cousins fell ill whom she
alone could comfort; nephews developed maladies for which she alone
could care; and, according to Thaddeus's record, John had been
compelled on penalty of a fine to attend the funerals of some
twenty-four deceased intimate friends in less than two months,
although the newspapers contained no mention of the existence of a
possible epidemic in the Celtic quarter. It is true that John
showed a more pronounced desire to make his absence less
inconvenient to his employer than did Mary and the cook, by
providing a substitute when the Ancient Order of Funereal Hibernians
compelled him to desert the post of duty; but Thaddeus declared the
"remedy worse than the disease," for the reason that John's
substitute--his own bro