ck into her rocking
chair, and there was a pause.

"My dear," said Chapman, meekly, "I have always held that a man could
commit no greater folly than that of quarrelling with a woman on a
question of family pride. In such a contest the man is sure to get the
worst of it. I say this understandingly, my dear." And Chapman shut up
his book, and looked up into his wife's face, as if to watch the changes
of her countenance.

"We may agree on that matter yet, my dear. A man is never so low by
birth (I mean in this country, at least,) but that he may rise to the
highest office of honor and trust--"

"Not with such a name as Toodlebug--never!" Mrs. Chapman interrupted,
curtly.

"That's a mistake, my dear. Names never distinguished people. A man's
merit and money are the things that do it. This is a free country. A
woman may have as many quarrels as she pleases, and have her own way in
things generally. Nothing personal, my dear.

"But to go back to what I was pondering over when you interrupted me. A
family never gets through the world easy without a solid basis; and I
was thinking how to give a solid basis to our little family. Marrying is
all well enough in its way; but the woman who marries a man without a
solid basis, either in money or character, marries into misery. That's
my philosophy--"

"Exactly!" interrupted Mrs. Chapman, with a stately nod of the head, and
rubbing her fat hands. "Now you talk as I like to hear you. There's no
getting up in the world without money."

"I intended to make that point in my logic, and was coming to it, my
dear. You see, we have got the building and everything in it, all our
own. And we have got two or three thousand dollars, all put away for a
wet day. Property all honorably made. Heaven knows I would not have a
dollar that was not. That, my dear, is a good beginning for a good
basis. We must keep adding to it; keep the tide flowing in the channel
of success. I was thinking, my dear, of inventing a new religion."

"My dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Chapman, with an air of astonishment, "what an
inventive head you have got. But you have said so often that there was
too much religion in the world, and not enough of true goodness."

"Of the old kind, I meant, my dear;" resumed the little man. "What I
mean is to invent a religion that is new and novel, has something broad
and attractive in it, and that people of a curious turn of mind would
pay for enjoying. That's the kind of religion tha