hearing distance, was used to keep silence and
criticise the talkers) was as busy with tongues and hands as its
neighbors. So Mrs. Hardy, smiling a little at her neighbor's absent
glance, listened until her thoughts wandered far afield. She only half
caught the enthusiasm of the neighbor to her right, over an address on
village improvement, or the indignation of the dames to the left, who
were rehearsing the political baseness of Massachusetts. She was
recalling a day thirty-three years ago. She did not see the secretary
behind the table, whispering to the president; she did not notice a
little group to the left near where the silk banner of Massachusetts
fluttered, putting their heads together and gesticulating above their
whispers. She forgot her surroundings and saw only a tall young man
whose ardent eyes sank as they met her own, a handsome young fellow, who
caught her hand in his, as they sat alone in the carriage, driving to
the depot, and kissed the fingers and the wedding-ring, crying out he
was not half good enough for her. "He was in love with me, _then_!" she
thought. But now? Well, it was not to be expected a man with a great
business and cares and money to think about and political affairs (for
they were importuning Darius to go to the senate) should be paying
romantic compliments to his middle-aged wife. Nevertheless, Darius had
never forgotten their anniversary until last year. On her reminding him,
he had whistled and laughed. "So it is," says he, "we ought to spend it
together; it's a shame I have to go to Chicago; why don't you come with
me?"

Smiling (yet a foolish something not merry was twitching at her nerves),
she had declined. But she made a good excuse; Darius never guessed that
she was so silly as to mind; and he brought her a sweet pigeon-blood
ruby ring, set in diamonds, from Chicago; and he kissed her when he
slipped it on her finger--kissed her cheek, not her hand. She wondered,
at this minute, why she should wish that he had kissed the hand instead;
an elderly woman ought to be content with a calm, assured, faithful
affection, and let beautiful youngsters have the frills. That evening,
she planned a dinner carefully to his liking, and she would not let
herself be disappointed when he brought a political magnate, who talked
politics, from the terrapin to the coffee. She smiled again, as she
thought how much more of interest she would have found in the
conversation, to-day, after the club's