hey were embarrassed at being out
so late!" "But why then did they walk so infernally like Odd Fellows
coming home from the lodge at midnight?"

"I'll know presently!" said Magnis Carter, as he flirted around the
corner into the avenue. "I'll ask Carrie!"

And, as good as his word, he did.

"Carrie, what's the Civic League and Cemetery Association mean by
keeping such late hours?" he asked as he sat down to dinner.

"There is no such organization here any more, Magnis."

"Isn't? What's become of it? You women get mad and tear up your Magna
Charter?"

"No, we've changed it, going to get out another charter."

"So, you've changed it? Going to be an Odd Fellows lodge now?" he
laughed.

"Something like that," she answered coolly.

"Can't afford it, my dear; to be an Odd Fellow costs like thunder!"

"We have plenty of funds," was the astonishing reply.

"Speak as if you'd inherited the Mosely Estate."

Silence on the part of Carrie, who sat at the other end of the table
like a Dominique hen brooding strange eggs.

"Hear anything about the will?"

When there was no answer to this question, Carter looked up at his wife.

"I say did you hear anything about Sarah Mosely's will?"

Still no reply.

"Then you did hear something? What was it?" His manner had become
suddenly serious.

"You'll know soon enough, Magnis."

"Can't you tell me?"

"No, I cannot!"

"Secrets from your husband?"

"I never resent your keeping your affairs from me, why should you object
to my keeping mine from you?" she answered coolly.

"Good Lord, Carrie, you look at me as if you'd filed papers for divorce!
And when did the Mosely will become one of your affairs, I'd like to
know?"

She declined to tell him that. She poked her foot about under the table
with the absent-minded stare a woman always has when she is trying to
find the electric bell with her extremities. She found it and pressed
all the current on, so that the maid came with an injured put-upon air
to clear the table.

Carter continued to regard his wife as if she had become a phenomenon,
and as if he was entirely ignorant of the laws which had exalted her
into the unknown. When the servant disappeared with the tray of
indignantly rattling dishes he began again.

"Look here, Carrie, if there's any news about the disposition of that
woman's estate, I ought to have it for the _Signal_. We go to press
to-morrow."

"You'll get all the news you are entitled to have