ffer itself, and
shortly after the reception the Fenholtzes left for the South, where
they were to spend the winter. So that source of information was cut
off.

During the next fortnight the captain's sense of desertion and of being
almost a stranger in his own house grew stronger than ever. There were
more callers and more calls to return; there were more bridge parties
and teas. His wife astonished him by announcing that she was going to
take lessons in bridge and that Mr. Hungerford had found a teacher to
perfect her in that branch of knowledge.

"Of course," she said, "it will cost quite a little, but Cousin Percy
says there's no use having a teacher at all unless you have a good one,
and three dollars a lesson isn't too much, because you learn so quickly
from an expert. I was sure you would be willing for me to take the
lessons, Daniel."

Daniel shook his head. "I'm willin' for you to do most anything that
pleases you, Serena," he said, "but three dollars a lesson for learnin'
how to play cards seems to me a pretty good price. If it was me I should
feel as if 'twas doubtful whether I'd get as much out of it as I put in.
That's what Ezra Small, back home, said when he put his sprained foot
in a plaster cast. Ezra said he never expected to get more than half his
foot back, because the way that plaster stuck he cal'lated it would hang
on to the rest. I should feel the same way about the three dollars for a
bridge lesson."

"Oh, no, you wouldn't after you had taken a few. You'll like it then."

"_I_, like it! Good Heavens, you don't mean--"

"I meant that you're going to take lessons, too, of course. You must
learn to play bridge--everybody plays it. And you used to like cards."

"I used to like high-low-jack, and I could manage to take a hand at
euchre without raisin' too big a disturbance; but I never could learn
that bridge and play it with those women friends of yours--never in this
world. More'n that, I don't intend to try."

And he positively refused to try in spite of his wife's pleading.
However, he consented to the employment of the bridge teacher for
her and, thereafter, two hours of each alternate afternoon, Sundays
excepted, were spent by Mrs. Dott and two other female students in
company with a thin and didactic spinster who quoted Elwell and Foster
and discoursed learnedly concerning the values of no-trump hands. The
lessons were given at the Dott home and Mr. Hungerford was an interested
specta