to your office--and then all that turned inside out when
you come back in the evening."

"Oh, I'll be able to do a lot of business figuring in that time. It
won't be wasted."

They fell into happy picture-making of their future. Lydia wanted to
have chickens and a garden, she said. She'd always wanted to be a
farmer's wife--an idea that caused Paul much laughter. They revised the
plans for the furnishing of the hall--the china closet could stand
against the west wall of the dining-room; why had they not thought of
that before? The little room upstairs was to be a sewing-room "Although
I hate sewing," cried Lydia, "and nowadays, when ready-mades are so
cheap and good--"

"Nobody expected you to make yourself tailored street dresses," said
Paul; "but don't I all the time hear Madeleine and my aunt saying how
the 'last _chic_ of a costume, the little indefinable touches that give
a toilet distinction,' they have to fuss up themselves out of bits of
lace and ribbon and fur and truck?" He was quoting, evidently, with an
amused emphasis.

Lydia leaned to him, her eyes wide in a mock solemnity. "Paul, I have a
horrible confession to make to you. I _loathe_ the 'last _chic_, the
little indefinable touches that give a toilet,' and so forth! It makes
me sick to spend my time on them. What difference does it make to real
folks if their toilets _aren't_ 'and so forth!'"

She looked so deliciously whimsical with her down-drawn face of
rebellious contrition that Paul was enchanted. "And this I learn when
it's too late for me to draw back!" he cried in horror. "Woman! woman!
this tardy confession"

"Oh, there are lots of other confessions. Just wait."

"Out with them!"

"I don't know _anything_."

"That's something," admitted Paul.

"And you must teach me."

"Oh, this docile little 1840 wife! Don't you know the suffragists will
get you if you talk meek like that? What do you want to know? Volts, and
dynamos, and induction coils?"

"Everything," said Lydia comprehensively, "that you know. Books,
politics, music--"

"Lord! what a hash! What makes you think I know anything about such
things?"

"Why, you went through Cornell. You must know about books. And you're a
man, you must know about politics; and as for music, we'll learn about
that together. Aunt Julia and Godfather are going to give us a
piano-player--though I know they can't afford it, the dears!"

"People _are_ good to us." Paul's flush of gratitude for hi