over their weird
ignorance of domestic details; with its mishaps, mistakes, and
entertaining discoveries; over the comical super-abundances and
shortcomings of their "donation" outfit; over the thousand and one
quaint experiences of their novel relation to each other, to the
congregation, and to the world of Tyre at large.

Theron, indeed, might be said never to have laughed before. Up to that
time no friendly student of his character, cataloguing his admirable
qualities, would have thought of including among them a sense of humor,
much less a bent toward levity. Neither his early strenuous battle to
get away from the farm and achieve such education as should serve
to open to him the gates of professional life, nor the later wave of
religious enthusiasm which caught him up as he stood on the border-land
of manhood, and swept him off into a veritable new world of views and
aspirations, had been a likely school of merriment. People had prized
him for his innocent candor and guileless mind, for his good heart, his
pious zeal, his modesty about gifts notably above the average, but it
had occurred to none to suspect in him a latent funny side.

But who could be solemn where Alice was?--Alice in a quandary over the
complications of her cooking stove; Alice boiling her potatoes all day,
and her eggs for half an hour; Alice ordering twenty pounds of steak and
half a pound of sugar, and striving to extract a breakfast beverage from
the unground coffee-bean? Clearly not so tenderly fond and sympathetic a
husband as Theron. He began by laughing because she laughed, and grew by
swift stages to comprehend, then frankly to share, her amusement. From
this it seemed only a step to the development of a humor of his own,
doubling, as it were, their sportive resources. He found himself
discovering a new droll aspect in men and things; his phraseology took
on a dryly playful form, fittingly to present conceits which danced up,
unabashed, quite into the presence of lofty and majestic truths. He
got from this nothing but satisfaction; it obviously involved increased
claims to popularity among his parishioners, and consequently magnified
powers of usefulness, and it made life so much more a joy and a thing to
be thankful for. Often, in the midst of the exchange of merry quip
and whimsical suggestion, bright blossoms on that tree of strength and
knowledge which he felt expanding now with a mighty outward pushing
in all directions, he would la