fun. George Ramsey, going home about nine
o'clock, heard the laughter, and shrugged his shoulders rather
bitterly. Lily had made him such a good wife, according to the tenets
of wifehood, that he had apparently no reason to complain. She was
always perfectly amiable and affectionate, not violently
affectionate, but with the sort of affection which does not ruffle
laces nor disarrange hair, and that he had always considered the most
desirable sort of affection in the long-run. She and his mother got
on very well also--that is, apparently. Lily, it was true, always had
her way, but she had it so gently and unobtrusively that one really
doubted if she were not herself the conceder. She always looked the
same, she dressed daintily, and arranged her fair hair beautifully.
George did not own to himself that sameness irritated him when it was
such charming sameness. However, he did sometimes realize, and
sternly put it away from him, a little sting when he happened to meet
Maria. He had a feeling as if he had gone from a waxwork show and met
a real woman.

To-night when he heard the peals of laughter from the front door of
the Stillman house he felt the sting again, and an unwarrantable
childish indignation as if he had been left out of something and
slighted. He was conscious of wishing when he reached home that his
wife would greet him with a frown and reproaches; in fact, with
something new, instead of her sweet, gentle smile of admiration,
looking up from her everlasting embroidering, from where she sat
beside the sitting-room lamp. George felt furious with her for
admiring him. He sat down moodily and took up the evening paper. His
mother was not there. She had gone to her room early with a headache.

Finally, Lily remarked that it was a beautiful night, and it was as
exactly what might have been expected from her flower-like lips as
the squeaking call for mamma of a talking doll. George almost grunted
a response, and rattled his paper loudly. Lily looked at him with a
little surprise, but with unfailing love and admiration. George had
sometimes a feeling that if he were to beat her she would continue to
admire him and think it lovely of him. Lily had, in fact, the soul of
an Oriental woman in the midst of New England. She would have figured
admirably in a harem. George, being Occidental to his heart's core,
felt an exasperation the worse because it was needfully dumb, on
account of this adoration. He thought less of h