dining-room? How does it look?"

"I thought it beautiful, and I am sure you will like it," said Wilbur
Edes in the chastened tone which he commonly used toward his wife. He
had learned long ago that facetiousness displeased her, and he lived
only to please her, aside from his interest in his profession. Poor
Wilbur Edes thought his wife very wonderful, and watched with delight
the hats doffed when she entered the hotel lift like a little
beruffled yellow canary. He wished those men could see her later,
when the canary resemblance had altogether ceased, when she would
look tall and slender and lithe in her clinging yellow gown with the
great yellow stone gleaming in her corsage.

For some reason Margaret Edes held her husband's admiration with a
more certain tenure because she could not be graceful when weighed
down with finery. The charm of her return to grace was a never-ending
surprise. Wilbur Edes loved his wife more comfortably than he loved
his children. He loved them a little uneasily. They were unknown
elements to him, and he sometimes wished that he had more time at
home, to get them firmly fixed in his comprehension. Without the
slightest condemnation of his wife, he had never regarded her as a
woman in whom the maternal was a distinguishing feature. He saw with
approbation the charming externals with which she surrounded their
offspring. It was a gratification to him to be quite sure that
Maida's hair ribbon would always be fresh and tied perkily, and that
Adelaide would be full of dainty little gestures copied from her
mother, but he had some doubts as to whether his wonderful Margaret
might not be too perfect in herself, and too engrossed with the
duties pertaining to perfection to be quite the proper manager of
imperfection and immaturity represented by childhood.

"How did you leave the children!" he inquired when they were in their
bedroom at the hotel, and he was fitting the yellow satin slippers to
his wife's slender silk shod feet.

"The children were as well as usual. I told Emma to put them to bed.
Do you think the orchids in the dining-room are the right shade,
Wilbur?"

"I am quite sure. I am glad that you told Emma to put them to bed."

"I always do. Mrs. George B. Slade is most unpleasantly puffed up."

"Why?"

"Oh, because she got Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder to speak to the club."

"Did she do her stunt well?"

"Well enough. Mrs. Slade was so pleased, it was really offensive."

Wilbur