ouse
always with you. A husband and wife cannot be continually in each
other's company, unless they want to grow heartily tired of each
other. Now, if you would only lay aside those suspicions of yours, you
would find the people just as honest and generous and friendly as any
other sort of people you ever met, although they don't happen to be
fond of expressing their goodness in their talk."

"I have tried, dear--I will try again," said Sheila.

She resolved that she would go down and visit Mrs. Lavender next day,
and try to be interested in the talk of such people as might be there.
She would bring away some story about this or the other fashionable
woman or noble lord, just to show her husband that she was doing her
best to learn. She would drive patiently round the Park in that close
little brougham, and listen attentively to the moralities of Marcus
Aurelius. She would make an appointment to go with Mrs. Lavender to
a morning concert; and she would endeavor to muster up courage to ask
any ladies who might be there to lunch with her on that day, and go
afterward to this same entertainment. All these things and many more
Sheila silently vowed to herself she would do, while her husband sat
and expounded to her his theories of the obligations which society
demanded of its members.

But her plans were suddenly broken asunder.

"I met Mrs. Lorraine accidentally to-day," he said.

It was his first mention of the young American lady. Sheila sat in
mute expectation.

"She always asks very kindly after you."

"She is very kind."

He did not say, however, that Mrs. Lorraine had more than once made
distinct propositions, when in his company, that they should call in
for Sheila and take her out for a drive or to a flower-show, or some
such place, while Lavender had always some excuse ready.

"She is going to Brighton to-morrow, and she was wondering whether you
would care to run down for a day or two."

"With her?" said Sheila, recoiling from such a proposal instinctively.

"Of course not. I should go. And then at last, you know, you would see
the sea, about which you have been dreaming for ever so long."

The sea! There was a magic in the very word that could, almost at
any moment, summon tears into her eyes. Of course she accepted
right gladly. If her husband's duties were so pressing that the
long-talked-of journey to Lewis and Borva had to be repeatedly and
indefinitely postponed, here at least would be a chan