you if I couldn't take care of you?"

"'T isn't that," she replied, freeing herself from his encircling arm,
"but I like my work and I don't want to give it up. Besides--besides--I
thought you'd like to have me near you."

"I do want you near me, sweetheart, that isn't the point. You have the
same right that I have to any work that is your natural expression, but,
in spite of the advanced age in which we live, I can't help believing
that home is the place for a woman. I may be old-fashioned, but I don't
want my wife working down town--I've got too much pride for that. You
have your typewriter, and you can turn out Sunday specials by the yard,
if you want to. Besides, there are all the returned manuscripts--if you
have the time and aren't hurried, there's no reason why you shouldn't do
work that they can't afford to refuse."

Ruth was silent, and he laid his hand upon hers. "You understand me,
don't you, dear? God knows I'm not asking you to let your soul rust out
in idleness, and I wouldn't have you crave expression that was denied
you, but I don't want you to have to work when you don't feel like
it, nor be at anybody's beck and call. I know you did good work on the
paper--Carlton spoke of it, too--but others can do it as well. I want
you to do something that is so thoroughly you that no one else can do
it. It's a hard life, Ruth, you know that as well as I do, and I--I love
you."

His last argument was convincing. "I won't do anything you don't want me
to do, dear," she said, with a new humility.

"I want you to be happy, dearest," he answered, quickly. "Just try my
way for a year--that's all I ask. I know your independence is sweet to
you, but the privilege of working for you with hand and brain, with your
love in my heart; with you at home, to be proud of me when I succeed and
to give me new courage when I fail, why, it's the sweetest thing I've
ever known."

"I'll have to go back to town very soon, though," she said, a little
later, "I am interrupting the honeymoon."

"We'll have one of our own very soon that you can't interrupt, and, when
you go back, I'm going with you. We'll buy things for the house."

"We need lots of things, don't we?" she asked.

"I expect we do, darling, but I haven't the least idea what they are.
You'll have to tell me."

"Oriental rugs, for one thing," she said, "and a mahogany piano, and an
instrument to play it with, because I haven't any parlour tricks, and
some good pictur