p-meeting exercise,
and roared a chorus which was remarkable chiefly for requiring that
archness and playfulness in execution which he lacked. As the whole
house seemed to dilate with the sound, and the wind outside to withhold
its fury, Mr. Rylands felt that physical delight which children feel
in personal outcry, and was grateful to his wife for the opportunity.
Laying his hand affectionately on her shoulder, he noticed for the first
time that she was in a kind of evening-dress, and that her delicate
white shoulder shone through the black lace that enveloped it.

For an instant Mr. Rylands was shocked at this unwonted exposure. He
had never seen his wife in evening-dress before. It was true they were
alone, and in their own sitting-room, but the room was still invested
with that formality and publicity which seemed to accent this
indiscretion. The simple-minded frontier man's mind went back to Jane,
to the hired man, to the expressman, the stranger, all of whom might
have noticed it also.

"You have a new dress," he said slowly, "have you worn it all day?"

"No," she said, with a timid smile. "I only put it on just before you
came. It's the one I used to wear in the ballroom scene in 'Gay Times in
'Frisco.' You don't know it, I know. I thought I would wear it tonight,
and then," she suddenly grasped his hand, "you'll let me put all these
things away forever! Won't you, Josh? I've seen such nice pretty calico
at the store to-day, and I can make up one or two home dresses, like
Jane's, only better fitting, of course. In fact, I asked them to send
the roll up here to-morrow for you to see."

Mr. Rylands felt relieved. Perhaps his views had changed about the moral
effect of her retaining these symbols of her past, for he consented to
the calico dresses, not, however, without an inward suspicion that she
would not look so well in them, and that the one she had on was more
becoming.

Meantime she tried another piece of music. It was equally incongruous
and slightly Bacchantic.

"There used to be a mighty pretty dance went to that," she said, nodding
her head in time with the music, and assisting the heavily spasmodic
attempts of the instrument with the pleasant levity of her voice. "I
used to do it."

"Ye might try it now, Ellen," suggested her husband, with a
half-frightened, half-amused tolerance.

"YOU play, then," said Mrs. Rylands quickly, offering her seat to him.

Mr. Rylands sat down to the harmonium, as