d
the stairs to the library and threw himself into a chair. Mr.
Hungerford, smoking one of his host's cigars and reading the evening
paper, looked at him curiously and asked what was the matter.

Daniel turned on him. "Nothin'," he roared. "Nothin', do you hear?" Then
he rushed from the library to the hall, seized his hat and coat from the
rack and hurried out of the house. He walked and walked, but if, upon
his return, anyone had asked him where he had walked he could not have
told them. This was the first serious quarrel that he and his wife had
had during their married life.

It was half-past seven when he returned and found Azuba fidgeting in the
dining-room. It was Mr. Hapgood's free evening and he had left early.

"For mercy sakes!" Azuba demanded. "Where have you been?"

"Out!" was the gloomy rejoinder. "Where's the rest of the folks?"

"Gone to Chapter meetin'."

"Both of 'em?"

"Yes. It was an open meeting and Mr. Hungerford went along, too. Where
are you goin' now? Don't you want anything to eat? It's been waitin' for
you for an hour."

"Let it wait; I don't want it."

He walked from the room. Azuba gazed after him open-mouthed.

"Well!" she soliloquized in a voice loud enough for the captain to
hear. "Well, if anybody'll tell me what's the use of gettin' all het
up cookin' vittles in this house, then I'd like to have 'em do it. Here
I've worked and worked and fussed and fussed to get dinner and nobody's
ate a mouthful but one, and he's the one that gets it for nothin'. I
never saw such doin's. Don't talk to ME!"

Captain Dan didn't talk to anybody. He sat alone in the library,
miserable and downhearted. After a while Azuba came and announced that
she guessed she'd get a mouthful of fresh air, if she wasn't needed.
Receiving no answer, she apparently considered the request granted
and the captain heard the back door shut. Still the captain sat in the
library, a huddled, pathetic heap in the armchair, gazing at vacancy.
Occasionally he sighed.

The doorbell rang. Aroused from his doleful reverie by the sound, Daniel
jumped from his chair and, going to the hall, shouted for Azuba. Then
he remembered that Azuba was not on the premises and answered the ring
himself. He had forgotten to push the button of the porch light and,
peering out into the dark, he could see only that the person standing
upon the top step was a woman. A carriage had drawn up at the curb and
the driver was unloading a trunk fro