a warm Sunday afternoon, a month after
Dosia's return. From within, the voices of the children sounded
peacefully over their early supper.

The afternoon, so far, had savored only of domestic monotony, with no
foreshadowing of events to come. Dosia was out walking with George
Sutton, and the people who might "drop in," as they often did on
Sundays, had other engagements to-day. Lois, gowned in lavender
muslin, had been sitting on the piazza for an hour, trying to read
while waiting for Justin to join her. She had counted each minute, but
now that he was there, she put down her book with a show of reluctance
as she said:

"Why didn't you tell me before? I gave the order for the window-shades
yesterday when I was in town--that was what I wanted to talk to you
about this afternoon. You have to leave your order at least two weeks
beforehand at this season of the year."

"You can countermand it, can't you?"

"I suppose I'll have to--if we're not to move into the house," said
Lois in a high-keyed voice, with those tiresome tears coming, as
usual, to her eyes. She felt inexpressibly hurt, disappointed, fooled.
"I thought you said you were having so many orders lately. Does the
money _all_ have to 'go back into the business,'" she quoted
sardonically, "as usual? I think there might be some left for your own
family sometimes. I'm tired of always going without for the business."
It was a complaint she had made many times before, but in each fresh
pang of her resentment she felt as if she were saying it for the first
time.

"We have orders, I'm glad to say, but we've had one big setback
lately," he answered.

He knew, with a twinge, that she had some reason on her side. The very
effort for success was meat and drink to him; he cared not what else
he went without, so the business grew. But she _might_ have had a
little more out of it as they went along, instead of waiting for the
grand climax of undoubted prosperity. A little means so much to a wife
sometimes, because it means the recognition of her right.

"I've been in a lot of trouble lately, Lois, though I haven't talked
about it," he continued, with an unusual appeal in his voice. The
blasting fact of those returned machines had been all he could cope
with; he had been tongue-tied when it came to speaking about it--the
whirl and counter-whirl in his brain demanded concentration, not
diffusion and easy words to interpret. But now that he had begun to
see his way clea