the reverse of that in force in foreign
armies. Over there no officer can marry unless he and his bride-elect
can show that they will have over a certain income to live upon. In a
republican army like ours no man ought to be commissioned unless he will
agree to live on less than a fixed amount for each successive grade."
They called him "Crank Cranston" in the Eleventh for quite a while, but
without affecting in the faintest degree his sturdy stand. Margaret's
gowns continued simple and inexpensive, and their mode of living modest
as any subaltern's, and many women spoke of them as "close" and "mean,"
but many men wished openly they had Cranston's moral courage. At home,
too, better times had come. There was the old homestead, and Mr.
Cranston as counsel of certain big corporations had his easy salary and
little work. There was no anxiety, but there should be, said he, no
extravagance.

On the other hand, neighbor Barnard, who in by-gone days, tin
dinner-pail in hand, tramped cheerily by the lawyer's rose-trellised
home long hours before the household was awake, and who in his early
struggles to maintain his little lot and roof had often availed himself
of his neighbor's known liberality, had been surely and steadily
climbing to wealth and honors, was now among the ranking capitalists of
the great and growing city, and a few years back had been united in
marriage to the admiration of his early school days,--Almira
Prendergast, who, disdaining him in the early 50's and wedding the youth
of her choice, was overwhelmed with joy to find in the days of want and
widowhood, fifteen years later, that Barnard had been faithful to his
ideal, had remained single for her sake, and so at last had she
consented to accept him and the control of his household. A pew in the
"First Presbyterian" had been for years his habitual resort on the
Sabbath, but as time wore on and wealth accumulated and the lady of his
love assumed more and more the leadership in all matters, spiritual and
domestic, he saw his establishment blossoming into unaccustomed
splendor, he met new people, later comers from the distant East, and
dropped the old, the friends of his boy days. He never meant to. He was
engrossed in his affairs. He let Mrs. Barnard "run the machine," as he
used to phrase it, knowing nothing of that sort of thing himself, and
Almira's buxom beauty, attired now in splendor hitherto undreamed of,
was rapidly rising into prominence in the new an