ritably. "If you can't keep the house quiet, I'll go back to New York!"

Too crushed in spirit to reply, Dorothy said nothing, and Harlan whisked
back into the library again, barely escaping Mrs. Dodd.

"Poor child," she said to Dorothy; "you look plum beat out."

"I am," confessed Mrs. Carr, the quick tears coming to her eyes.

"There, there, my dear, rest easy. I reckon this is the first time you've
been married, ain't it?"

"Yes," returned Dorothy, forcing a pitiful little smile.

"I thought so. Now, when you're as used to it as I be, you won't take it
so hard. You may think men folks is all different, but there's a dretful
sameness to 'em after they've been through a marriage ceremony. Marriage
is just like findin' a new penny on the walk. When you first see it, it's
all shiny an' a'most like gold, an' it tickles you a'most to pieces to
think you're gettin' it, but after you've picked it up you see that what
you've got is half wild Indian, or mebbe more--I ain't never been in no
mint. You may depend upon it, my dear, there's two sides to all of us, an'
before marriage, you see the wreath--afterwards a savage.

"I've had seven of 'em," she continued, "an' I know. My father give me a
cemetery lot for a weddin' present, with a noble grey marble monumint in
it shaped like a octagon--leastways that's what a school-teacher what
boarded with us said it was, but I call it a eight-sided piece. I'm
speakin' of my first marriage now, my dear. My father never give me no
weddin' present but the once. An' I can't never marry again, 'cause
there's a husband lyin' now on seven sides of the monumint an' only one
place left for me. I was told once that I could have further husbands
cremationed an' set around the lot in vases, but I don't take to no such
heathenish custom as that.

"So I've got to go through my declinin' years without no suitable
companion an' I call it hard, when one's so used to marryin' as what I
be."

"If they're all savages," suggested Dorothy, "why did you keep on
marrying?"

"Because I hadn't no other way to get my livin' an' I was kinder in the
habit of it. There's some little variety, even in savages, an' it's human
natur' to keep on a-hopin.' I've had 'em stingy an' generous, drunk an'
sober, peaceful an' disturbin'. After the first few times, I learned to
take real pleasure out'n their queer notions. When you've learned to enjoy
seein' your husband make a fool of himself an' have got enough
self-