d you look at me because I had been
crying?"

"I thought you were troubled in spirit, and looked so."

"I suppose I looked worried, of course; I had no time to change or even
fix my hair; I had on that green dress, and it NEVER was becoming. And
you only spoke to me on account of my awful looks?"

"I saw only your wrestling soul, Ellen, and I thought you needed comfort
and help."

She was silent for a moment, and then, leaning forward, picked up the
poker and began to thrust it absently between the bars.

"And if it had been some other girl crying and looking awful, you'd have
spoken to her all the same?"

This was a new idea to Mr. Rylands, but with most men logic is supreme.
"I suppose I would," he said slowly.

"And married her?" She rattled the bars of the grate with the poker as
if to drown the inevitable reply.

Mr. Rylands loved the woman before him, but it pleased him to think that
he loved truth better. "If it had been necessary to her salvation, yes,"
he said.

"Not Tinkie?" she said suddenly.

"SHE never would have been in your contrite condition."

"Much you know! Girls like that can cry as well as laugh, just as they
want to. Well! I suppose I DID look horrid." Nevertheless, she seemed
to gain some gratification from her husband's reply, and changed
the subject as if fearful of losing that satisfaction by further
questioning.

"I tried some of those songs you brought, but I don't think they go
well with the harmonium," she said, pointing to some music on its rack,
"except one. Just listen." She rose, and with the same nervous quickness
she had shown before, went to the instrument and began to sing and play.
There was a hopeless incongruity between the character of the instrument
and the spirit of the song. Mrs. Rylands's voice was rather forced and
crudely trained, but Joshua Rylands, sitting there comfortably slippered
by the fire and conscious of the sheeted rain against the window, felt
it good. Presently he arose, and lounging heavily over to the fair
performer, leaned down and imprinted a kiss on the labyrinthine fringes
of her hair. At which Mrs. Rylands caught blindly at his hand nearest
her, and without lifting her other hand from the keys, or her eyes from
the music, said tentatively:--

"You know there's a chorus just here! Why can't you try it with me?"

Mr. Rylands hesitated a moment, then, with a preliminary cough, lifted a
voice as crude as hers, but powerful through much cam