" with a laugh as he handed them to her: "you know they are a part of
the worldly goods with which I did thee endow; and the keys always belong
to the female department by right, don't they?"

She took them with a vivid blush. "Shall I look over your trunks and
bureau, then?" she asked.

"Certainly, while I go to sleep and dream what a jolly thing it is to have
you here." Then, pretending to sleep, he watched her with careful hands
examine his belongings, with a contemptuous little smile at this piece of
bungling mending or an anxious frown over that frayed place. Then how
neatly she folded and laid back all the good, and seated herself with a
pile before her and began to sew! When he opened his eyes she handed him
the keys.

"No, Percy, keep them: I make all right and title to them over to you," he
said.

From that day he seemed to feel delight in her companionship, reading to
her hour after hour while she sewed, always choosing some poetical or
light bit of reading--"To suit my capacity," she thought.

So they had gone on week after week--with the single exception of the
Rollins episode--without any change. He was a rare favorite in society,
and every day received a host of calls from gentlemen, baskets of fruits
and flowers from ladies. Always, when a card was sent up, she would gather
all her womanish "traps" together and go to Mrs. Keller--this, too, in
spite of his earnest invitation to her to remain.

"No: you can have a pleasanter call with no ladies present, and Mrs.
Keller needs me. I'll be back in time for your medicine."

Once or twice some one, more intimate or free than usual, would run up
unannounced and catch her there. Her acceptation of the situation was, he
thought, perfect. Without a shadow of embarrassment she acknowledged the
introduction, "My wife," did the honors of the occasion, said a few words
regarding his state, and with some such words as "I will be back in an
hour or so, Ross," would leave the room.

Thus he was utterly unaware of what her abilities were. Whether she was
capable of holding a conversation, or could hold her own in society, he
could not opine; and it annoyed him keenly, for he was, like most
society-men, very punctilious regarding the manners of the particular
woman who belonged to him. That she was, in fact, an elegant
conversationalist, quick and brilliant at repartee, a fine linguist and an
intelligent thinker for a woman, he did not dream.

Nevertheless, the me