leasant, hearty mirth. "I'm appreciated
at my full worth," he cried.

"Oh, how I loathe cards!" cried Lydia, taking off her hat.

"It's better than the talk you'd get from most of the people there, I
bet," conjectured Paul, taking up his newspaper again. "Cards are a
blessing _that_ way, compared with conversation."

"Oh, dear, I suppose so!" Lydia stopped a moment in the doorway. "But
doesn't it seem a pity that you never see anybody but people who'd bore
you to death if you didn't stop their mouth with cards?"

"That's the way of the world," remarked Paul comfortably, returning to
the news of the day.

The little friendly chat gave Lydia courage for her plan of asking her
husband's advice about her perplexity, but, mindful of traditional
wisdom, she decided, as she thriftily changed her silk "party dress" for
a house-gown of soft wool, that she would wait until the mollifying
influence of dinner had time to assert itself. She wondered fearfully,
with a quick throb of her heart, how he would receive her confidence.
When she called him to the table she looked searchingly into his strong,
resolute, good-natured face, and then, dropping her eyes, with an
indrawn breath, began her usual fruitless endeavors to learn from him a
little of what had occupied his day--his long, mysterious day, spent in
a world of which he brought back but the scantiest tidings to her.

As usual, to-night he shook his shoulders impatiently at her
questioning. "Oh, Lydia darling, don't talk shop! I'm sick and tired of
it after three days of nothing else. I want to leave all that behind me
when I come home. That's what a home is for!"

Lydia did not openly dissent from this axiom, though she murmured
helplessly: "I feel so awfully shut out. It is what you think about most
of the time, and I do not know enough about it even to imagine--"

Paul leaned across the table to lay an affectionate hand on his wife's
slim fingers. "Count your mercies, my dear. It's all grab, and snap, and
cutting somebody's throat before he has a chance to cut yours. It
wouldn't please you if you did know anything about it--the business
world." He drew a long breath, and went on appreciatively with his
cutlet--Lydia had learned something about meats since the year
before--"You are a very good provider, little girl; do you know it?"

"Oh, I love to," said Lydia. She added reflectively: "Wouldn't it be
nice if things were so I could do the cooking myself and not have