ittering,
forgot them, and rejoiced in the spectacle of conjugal harmony afforded
them: women are generous creatures, and there is hardly any offence
which they are not willing another woman should forgive her husband,
when once they have said that they do not see how she could ever forgive
him.

Mrs. Maynard's silence seemed insufficient to none but Mrs. Breen and
her own husband. The former vigorously denounced its want of logic to
Grace as all but criminal, though she had no objection to Mr. Maynard.
He, in fact, treated her with a filial respect which went far to efface
her preconceptions; and he did what he could to retrieve himself from
the disgrace of a separation in Grace's eyes. Perhaps he thought that
the late situation was known to her alone, when he casually suggested,
one day, that Mrs. Maynard was peculiar.

"Yes," said Grace mercifully; "but she has been out of health so long.
That makes a great difference. She's going to be better now."

"Oh, it's going to come out all right in the end," he said, with his
unbuoyant hopefulness, "and I reckon I've got to help it along. Why, I
suppose every man's a trial at times, doctor?"

"I dare say. I know that every woman is," said the girl.

"Is that so? Well, may be you're partly right. But you don't suppose but
what a man generally begins it, do you? There was Adam, you know. He did
n't pull the apple; but he fell off into that sleep, and woke up
with one of his ribs dislocated, and that's what really commenced the
trouble. If it had n't been for Adam, there would n't have been any
woman, you know; and you could n't blame her for what happened after she
got going?" There was no gleam of insinuation in his melancholy eye, and
Grace listened without quite knowing what to make of it all. "And then
I suppose he was n't punctual at meals, and stood round talking politics
at night, when he ought to have been at home with his family?"

"Who?" asked Grace.

"Adam," replied Mr. Maynard lifelessly. "Well, they got along pretty
well outside," he continued. "Some of the children didn't turn out just
what you might have expected; but raising children is mighty uncertain
business. Yes, they got along." He ended his parable with a sort of
weary sigh, as if oppressed by experience. Grace looked at his slovenly
figure, his smoky complexion, and the shaggy outline made by his
untrimmed hair and beard, and she wondered how Louise could marry him;
but she liked him, and she wa