s, he said, 'I suppose if she's been idiotic enough to
decide to marry you, it would be impossible to bring her to her senses
now.' I cordially assented."

"Do you know, I believe I really _am_ married," Isabel said
reflectively; "for I certainly object most decidedly to my father's way
of talking to you. Heavens! If I have to go through life resenting
the things people say of my husband, I shall certainly lead a checkered
career."

"It is the common lot of wives," remarked her husband philosophically.
"But here we are, hard by the gilded food bazaar wherein a head waiter
with drawn butterknife guards a table for three, reserved in my name.
We are about fifteen minutes early, but personally I could look with
resignation on the idea of nourishment."

"The voice of returning nature," said Helen, with a laugh. "Charlie
married is the same man, in one respect at least, that we have always
known. Isabel, you may be disturbed over what people say about your
husband, but you will never need to be disturbed at his lack of
appetite."

"The main disturbance will be in providing for it," Wilkinson
responded. "The securities I own bring me in a revenue of thirty
dollars a year. That is two dollars and a half a month, or about eight
cents a day. I read only yesterday an article about some ingenious
person who contrived to support life on something like that sum, but my
recollection is that his menu consisted almost entirely of peanut
butter--of which I am not particularly fond--and besides that, there
was only one of him, while there are two of us."

"Yes, that's true," Miss Maitland conceded.

"I had begun to think I had gotten financially on my feet, when my
father-in-law turned over that trolley insurance to me, but he says
he'll see me considerably below the equator before he gives me the
renewal of it. Deeply do I regret that I did not succeed in getting
him to take out three-year policies."

"Why wouldn't he?"

"Well, he just wouldn't. And I was unwilling to force the matter for
fear of losing entirely that coy and canny fish. I did get him,
though, to let me rewrite the line last month, so as to include some
property not at first insured, and that ties it up until next April.
And maybe before next April comes around, the hard-hearted John M. will
have relented toward his gifted son-in-law, and all will be well.
Meanwhile we will live on our principal."

"Meanwhile we will do nothing of the sort," said M