permitted to flourish, might develop to dangerous proportions.

"So you're goin' to take his part, too? It's a strange thing if I
can't handle my hired help without advice from the house."

Mary flushed at the remark. Any open quarrel with her husband,
especially before the children--for she still thought of the man and
woman to her left and right as "the children"--was more painful to
her than, any submission could have been. It would be so much easier
to change the subject, to follow the line of least resistance, and
forget the incident as quickly as possible. That had been her
constant policy after the first few years of their married life. At
first there had been troubles and difficulties, but she had gradually
adjusted herself to her niche, and their lives had run smoothly
together because she never interrupted the current of his. But of
late the conviction had been coming home to her that some time,
somewhere, she must make a stand. It was all very well meekly to fall
in line as long as only her own happiness was concerned, but if the
future of her children should be at stake, or if the justice of their
dealings with others should be the issue, then she would have to
fight, and fight it out to a finish. And, quite unbidden, a strange
surge of defiance welled in her when her husband so frankly told her
to mind her own business.

"I was under the impression we were managing this farm together, you
and I, John," she said, very calmly, but with a strange ring in her
voice. "When we came West I understood it was to build _our_ home. I
didn't know it was just to be _your_ home."

The look of surprise with which Harris greeter her words was
absolutely genuine. A hot, stinging retort sprang to his lips, but by
a sudden effort he suppressed it. His wife's challenge, quiet,
unruffled, but with evidence of unbending character behind it, in
some way conjured something out of the past, and he saw her again,
the greying locks restored to their youthful glory and the careworn
cheek abloom with the colour of young maidenhood as they had been in
the gathering shadows that night when they swore to build their own
home, and live their own lives, and love each other, always, only,
for ever and ever...And yet, to let her defiance go unchecked, to
have his authority challenged before his own children--it would be
the beginning of dissolution, the first crumblings of collapse.

"We will talk about that some other time, Mary," he