" said Lois, smiling; but
then she added with earnest and almost anxious eagerness,

"Madge, dear, don't think about it! Happiness is not there; and what
God gives us is best. Best for you and best for me. Don't you wish for
riches!--or for anything we haven't got. What we have to do, is to live
so as to show forth Christ and his truth before men."

"Very few do that," said Madge shortly.

"Let us be some of the few."

"I'd like to do it in high places, then," said Madge. "O, you needn't
talk, Lois! It's a great deal nicer to have a leopard skin under your
feet than a rag-carpet."

Lois could not help smiling, though something like tears was gathering.

"And I'd rather have Mr. Dillwyn take care of me than uncle Tim
Hotchkiss."

The laughter and the tears came both more unmistakeably. Lois felt a
little hysterical. She finished dressing hurriedly, and heard as little
as possible of Madge's further communications.

It was a few hours later, that same morning, that Philip Dillwyn
strolled into his sister's breakfast-room. It was a room at the back of
the house, the end of a suite; and from it the eye roved through
half-drawn _portieres_ and between rows of pillars, along a vista of
the parquetted floors Madge had described to her sister; catching here
the glitter of gold from a picture frame, and there a gleam of white
from a marble figure, through the half light which reigned there. In
the breakfast-room it was bright day; and Mrs. Burrage was finishing
her chocolate and playing with bits of dry toast, when her brother came
in. Philip had hardly exchanged greetings and taken his seat, when his
attention was claimed by Mrs. Burrage's young son and heir, who
forthwith thrust himself between his uncle's knees, a bat in one hand,
a worsted ball in the other.

"Uncle Phil, mamma says her name usen't to be Burrage--it was your
name?"

"That is correct."

"If it was your name once, why isn't it your name now?"

"Because she changed it and became Burrage."

"What made her be Burrage?"

"That is a deep question in mental philosophy, which I am unable to
answer, Chauncey."

"She says, it's because she married papa."

"Does not your mother generally speak truth?"

Young Philip Chauncey seemed to consider this question; and finally
waiving it, went on pulling at a button of his uncle's coat in the
energy of his inquiries.

"Uncle Phil, you haven't got a wife?"

"No."

"Why haven't you?"

"An old cookery