quently and definitely stated.

They regulated their relations on a sound business basis, they were wont
to say of themselves, the natural one, the right one. The husband earned
the money, the wife saw that it was spent to the best advantage, and
neither needed to bother his head or dissipate his energies about the
other's end of the matter. They had found it meant less friction, they
said; fewer occasions for differences of opinion. Once, when they had
been urging this system upon their son George, then about to marry, Dr.
Melton had made the suggestion that there would be still fewer
differences of opinion if married people agreed never to see each other
after the ceremony in the church. There would be no friction at all
with that system, he added. It was one of his preposterous speeches
which had become a family joke with the Emerys.

"Well, what if I have?" Mrs. Emery advanced defiantly upon her husband,
with this remark repeated.

Judge Emery shared a well-known domestic peculiarity with other
estimable and otherwise courageous men. He retreated precipitately
before the energy of his wife's counter-attack, only saying sulkily, to
conceal from himself the fact of his retreat, "Well, we're not
millionaires, you know."

"Did I ever think we were?" she said, smiling inwardly at his change of
front. "If you stand right up to men, they'll give in," she often
counseled other matrons. She began to look up another number in the
telephone book.

"If you order fifty dollars' worth every morning, besides--"

"Three-four-four--Weston," remarked his wife to the telephone. To her
husband she said conclusively, "I thought we were agreed to make Lydia's
first season everything it ought to be. And isn't she being worth it?
There hasn't a girl come out in Endbury in _years_ that's been so
popular, or had so much--" She jerked her head around to the
telephone--"Three-four-four--Weston? Is this Mr. Schmidt? I want Mr.
Schmidt himself. Tell him Mrs. Emery--"

The Judge broke in, with the air of launching the most startling of
arguments, "Well, my salary won't stand it; that's sure! If this keeps
up I'll have to resign from the bench and go into practice again."

His wife looked at him without surprise. "Well, I've often thought that
might be a very good thing." She added, with good-humored impatience,
"Oh, go along, Nathaniel. You know it's just one of your bilious
attacks, and you will catch cold sitting there with all your--M