laughed with her. "You haven't changed much, Louise."

Her mother said, in another sense, "I think you look a little pulled
down," and that made her and her father laugh again. She got to playing
with him, and poking him, and kissing him, in the way she had with him
when she was a girl; it was not so very long ago.

Her mother bore with this for awhile, and then she rose to go.

"You're not going to stay!" Louise protested.

"Not to-day, my dear. I've got some shopping to do before lunch."

"Well," said Louise, "I didn't suppose you would stay the first time,
such swells as you and papa. But I shall insist upon your coming
to-morrow when you've recovered a little from the blow this home of
virtuous poverty has given you, and I've had a chance to dust and
prepare for you. And I'll tell you what, mamma; Brice and I will come to
dinner with you to-night, and we won't take any refusal. We'll be with
you at seven. How will that do, papa?"

"That will do," said Hilary, with his arm round her waist, and they
kissed each other to clinch the bargain.

"And don't you two old things go away and put your frosty paws together
and say Brice and I are not happy. We do quarrel like cats and dogs
every now and then, but the rest of the time we're the happiest couple
in the universe, and an example to parents."

Hilary would have manifestly liked to stay and have her go on with her
nonsense, but his wife took him away.

When Maxwell came in she was so full of their visit that she did not ask
him what luck he had with his play, but told him at once they were going
to dine with her father and mother. "And I want you to brace up, my
dear, and not let them imagine anything."

"How, anything?" he asked, listlessly.

"Oh, nothing. About your play not going perfectly. I didn't think it
necessary to go into particulars with them, and you needn't. Just pass
it over lightly if they ask you anything about it. But they won't."

Maxwell did not look so happy as he might at the prospect of dining with
his wife's father and mother, but he did not say anything disagreeable,
and after an instant of silent resentment Louise did not say anything
disagreeable either. In fact, she devoted herself to avoiding any
displeasures with him, and she arrived with him at the Hilarys' hotel on
perfectly good terms, and, as far as he was concerned, in rather good
spirits.

Upon the whole, they had a very good time. Hilary made occasion to speak
to Maxwe