h of marriage to learn that it demands a somewhat exorbitant
price for joys otherwise more reasonably to be obtained.

He was left a widower with two children, a girl of thirteen and a boy of
twelve, both somewhat large for their ages. Amy attended the only private
institution for the instruction of her sex of which Hampton could boast;
George continued at a public school. The late Mrs. Ditmar for some years
before her demise had begun to give evidence of certain restless
aspirations to which American ladies of her type and situation seem
peculiarly liable, and with a view to their ultimate realization she had
inaugurated a Jericho-like campaign. Death had released Ditmar from its
increasing pressure. For his wife had possessed that admirable substitute
for character, persistence, had been expert in the use of importunity,
often an efficient weapon in the hands of the female economically
dependent. The daughter of a defunct cashier of the Hampton National
Bank, when she had married Ditmar, then one of the superintendents of the
Chippering and already a marked man, she had deemed herself fortunate
among women, looking forward to a life of ease and idleness and candy in
great abundance,--a dream temporarily shattered by the unforeseen
discomfort of bringing two children into the world, with an interval of
scarcely a year between them. Her parents from an excess of native
modesty having failed to enlighten her on this subject, her feelings were
those of outraged astonishment, and she was quite determined not to
repeat the experience a third time. Knowledge thus belatedly acquired,
for a while she abandoned herself to the satisfaction afforded by the
ability to take a commanding position in Hampton society, gradually to
become aware of the need of a more commodious residence. In a certain
kind of intuition she was rich. Her husband had meanwhile become Agent of
the Chippering Mill, and she strongly suspected that his prudent
reticence on the state of his finances was the best indication of an
increasing prosperity. He had indeed made money, been given many
opportunities for profitable investments; but the argument for social
pre-eminence did not appeal to him: tears and reproaches, recriminations,
when frequently applied, succeeded better; like many married men, what he
most desired was to be let alone; but in some unaccountable way she had
come to suspect that his preference for blondes was of a more liberal
nature than at