not make me seem heroic, for there is very little of
that about me. It is trying to combine the two that makes the severity
of the task, but my friend is a host in himself. To him really belongs
the credit of our work; still, I have at length discovered that the
bent of my mind is toward letters and science, and in another year I
hope to do something by myself."

"It is hard to be immersed in family cares at the same time," she
answers, with the most fascinating sympathy in her eyes. "Our idea of
such men is in the study and the world that they charm with their
patient research. I have read of women who wrote poetry and made bread,
but certainly both, to be excellent, need an undivided attention. The
delicate sense of the poesy and the proper heat of the oven seem
naturally to conflict."

He smiles at her conceit, but he has found it sadly true. There is a
touch of confident faith in her voice that is delicately encouraging.
He has had no sympathy for so long until the professor came, for it
would be simply foolish to expect it of his own household, who are not
even certain that they can confide in his sense of justice. He has
bidden adieu to the old friends and scenes, and is not quite fitted to
the new, hence the jarring.

A silvery-toned gong sounds for luncheon. Madame goes to meet her guest
and escorts her on the one side, while her son is on the other. It is a
charming and deferential attention, and Mrs. Grandon rises in her own
estimation, while the dreadful sacrifice her son has made looms dark by
contrast.

Afterward, going down the street, Floyd remembers with a twinge of
shame that Violet has not once been mentioned. It was his remissness,
of course. He could not expect madame to discuss his marriage as one of
the ordinary events of life, but he wishes now that he had taken the
honorable step. If he only understood the turns and tricks of
fashionable life. He has been in wilds and deserts so long, that he has
a curious nervous dread of blunders or those inopportune explanations
he has occasionally witnessed.

CHAPTER XIV.

To be wise is the first part of happiness.--ANTIGONE.

They are excellently served and complete order reigns at the great
house, yet Mrs. Grandon is missed, in ways not altogether complimentary
if one put it into words. Marcia delights in playing at mistress. She
asks in some of her neighbors to dinner, but Violet, excusing herself,
goes over to the cottage. Floyd is not at