earance of the
brass fenders that she doesn't like to polish them up on Wednesday
because it gives her a backache on Thursday, which is her day out."

Bessie's eyes took on their watery aspect again.

"Do the fenders look so very badly, Ted?" she asked.

"They're atrocious," said Thaddeus.

"I'm sorry, dear; but I did my best. I polished them myself this
afternoon; Jane had to go to a funeral."

"Oh, my!" cried Thaddeus. "This subject's too much for me. Let's
go out--somewhere, anywhere--to a concert. Music hath its charms to
soothe a savage breast, and my breast is simply the very essence of
wildness to-night. Put on your things, Bess, and hurry, or I'll
suffocate."

Bessie did as she was told, and before ten o'clock the happy pair
had forgotten their woes, nor do I think they would have remembered
them again that night had they not found on their return home that
they were locked out.

At this even the too amiable Bessie was angry--very angry--unjustly,
as it turned out afterwards.

"They weren't to blame, after all," she explained to Thaddeus, when
he came home the next night. "I spoke to them about it, and they
all thought we'd spend the night with your mother and father at the
Oxford."

"They're a thoughtful lot," said Thaddeus.

And so time passed. The "treasures" did as they pleased; the
dubious auburn-haired Norah continued her aggravating efficiency.
Bessie's days were spent in anticipation of an interview of an
unpleasant nature with Jane or Ellen "to-morrow." Thaddeus's former
smile grew less perpetual--that is, it was always visible when
Bessie was before him, but when Bessie was elsewhere, so also was
the token of Thaddeus's amiability. He chafed under the tyranny,
but it never occurred to him but once that it would be well for him
to interview Ellen and Jane; and then, summoning them fiercely, he
addressed them mildly, ended the audience with a smile, and felt
himself beneath their sway more than ever.

Then something happened. A day came and went, and the morrow
thereof found Thaddeus dethroned from even his nominal position of
head of the house. There was a young Thaddeus, an eight-pound
Thaddeus, a round, red-cheeked, bald-headed Thaddeus that looked
more like the Thaddeus of old than Thaddeus did himself; and then,
at a period in which man feels himself the least among the
insignificant, did our hero find happiness unalloyed once more, for
to the pride of being a father was a