m occasion
for the expenditure of whatever superfluous energy he found himself
possessed of, yet it did not engross his entire attention. The faculty
which the busiest of young men have for finding time in which to present
themselves, well clothed and unbusiness-like, to at least one young
woman, is as remarkable and admirable as it is inexplicable. The
evenings which did not find Fred in Parson Wedgewell's parlor were few
indeed, and if, when he was with Esther, he did not talk quite as
sentimentally as he had done in the earlier days of his engagement, and
if he talked business very frequently, the change did not seem
distasteful to the lady herself. For the business of which he talked
was, in the main, a sort which loving women have for ages recognized as
the inevitable, and to which they have subjected themselves with a
unanimity which deserves the gratitude of all humanity. Fred talked of a
cottage which he might enter without first knocking at the door, and of
a partnership which should be unlimited; if he learned, in the course of
successive conversations, that even in partnerships of the most extreme
order many compromises are absolutely necessary, the lesson was one
which improved his character in the ratio in which it abased his pride.
The cottage grew as rapidly as the mill, and on his returns from various
trips for machinery there came with Fred's freight certain packages
which prevented their owner from appearing so completely the absorbed
businessman which he flattered himself that he seemed. Then the
partnership was formed one evening in Parson Wedgewell's own church, in
the presence of a host of witnesses, Fred appearing as self-satisfied
and radiant as the gainer in such transactions always does, while
Esther's noble face and drooping eyes showed beyond doubt who it was
that was the giver.

As the weeks succeeded each other after the wedding, however, no
acquaintance of the couple could wonder whether the gainer or the giver
was the happier. Fred improved rapidly, as the schoolboy improves; but
Esther's graces were already of mature growth, and rejoiced in their
opportunity for development. Though she could not have explained how it
happened, she could not but notice that maidens regarded her
wonderingly, wives contemplated her wistfully, frowns departed and
smiles appeared when she approached people who were usually considered
prosaic. Yet shadows sometimes stole over her face, when she looked at
cert