t Bar Harbour, Mrs. Corey
suddenly walked in upon her husband in their house in Boston. He was
at breakfast, and he gave her the patronising welcome with which the
husband who has been staying in town all summer receives his wife when
she drops down upon him from the mountains or the sea-side. For a
little moment she feels herself strange in the house, and suffers
herself to be treated like a guest, before envy of his comfort vexes
her back into possession and authority. Mrs. Corey was a lady, and she
did not let her envy take the form of open reproach.

"Well, Anna, you find me here in the luxury you left me to. How did
you leave the girls?"

"The girls were well," said Mrs. Corey, looking absently at her
husband's brown velvet coat, in which he was so handsome. No man had
ever grown grey more beautifully. His hair, while not remaining dark
enough to form a theatrical contrast with his moustache, was yet some
shades darker, and, in becoming a little thinner, it had become a
little more gracefully wavy. His skin had the pearly tint which that
of elderly men sometimes assumes, and the lines which time had traced
upon it were too delicate for the name of wrinkles. He had never had
any personal vanity, and there was no consciousness in his good looks
now.

"I am glad of that. The boy I have with me," he returned; "that is,
when he IS with me."

"Why, where is he?" demanded the mother.

"Probably carousing with the boon Lapham somewhere. He left me
yesterday afternoon to go and offer his allegiance to the Mineral Paint
King, and I haven't seen him since."

"Bromfield!" cried Mrs. Corey. "Why didn't you stop him?"

"Well, my dear, I'm not sure that it isn't a very good thing."

"A good thing? It's horrid!"

"No, I don't think so. It's decent. Tom had found out--without
consulting the landscape, which I believe proclaims it everywhere----"

"Hideous!"

"That it's really a good thing; and he thinks that he has some ideas in
regard to its dissemination in the parts beyond seas."

"Why shouldn't he go into something else?" lamented the mother.

"I believe he has gone into nearly everything else and come out of it.
So there is a chance of his coming out of this. But as I had nothing
to suggest in place of it, I thought it best not to interfere. In
fact, what good would my telling him that mineral paint was nasty have
done? I dare say YOU told him it was nasty."

"Yes! I did."

"And you see with w