Marcia cast her arms round his neck and kissed him. "O Bartley, I
think I'm the happiest girl in the world! I was just wondering what I
should do. There are places in that Clover Street house that need
touching up so dreadfully. I shall be very careful. You needn't be
afraid I shall overdo. But, this just saves my life. Did you BUY it,
Bartley? You know we couldn't afford it, and you oughtn't to have done
it! And what does the Persis Brand mean?"

"Buy it?" cried Bartley. "No! The old fool's sent it to you as a
present. You'd better wait for the facts before you pitch into me for
extravagance, Marcia. Persis is the name of his wife; and he named it
after her because it's his finest brand. You'll see it in my
interview. Put it on the market her last birthday for a surprise to
her."

"What old fool?" faltered Marcia.

"Why, Lapham--the mineral paint man."

"Oh, what a good man!" sighed Marcia from the bottom of her soul.
"Bartley! you WON'T make fun of him as you do of some of those people?
WILL you?"

"Nothing that HE'LL ever find out," said Bartley, getting up and
brushing off the carpet-lint from his knees.

II.

AFTER dropping Bartley Hubbard at the Events building, Lapham drove on
down Washington Street to Nankeen Square at the South End, where he had
lived ever since the mistaken movement of society in that direction
ceased. He had not built, but had bought very cheap of a terrified
gentleman of good extraction who discovered too late that the South End
was not the thing, and who in the eagerness of his flight to the Back
Bay threw in his carpets and shades for almost nothing. Mrs. Lapham
was even better satisfied with their bargain than the Colonel himself,
and they had lived in Nankeen Square for twelve years. They had seen
the saplings planted in the pretty oval round which the houses were
built flourish up into sturdy young trees, and their two little girls
in the same period had grown into young ladies; the Colonel's tough
frame had expanded into the bulk which Bartley's interview indicated;
and Mrs. Lapham, while keeping a more youthful outline, showed the
sharp print of the crow's-foot at the corners of her motherly eyes, and
certain slight creases in her wholesome cheeks. The fact that they
lived in an unfashionable neighbourhood was something that they had
never been made to feel to their personal disadvantage, and they had
hardly known it till the summer before this story ope