natural honesty in women that prevents them
from claiming that their husbands are perfection. In some this is so
abnormally developed that, to be on the safe side, I suppose, they
will not allow that their husbands have any virtues whatever; in
others the trace of this type of honesty is so slight that they will
claim to every one, except their dearest friends, that their
husbands are the best in the world. The normal wife first announces
that her husband is as near perfect as any man can be, and then
proceeds to enumerate all his imperfections, bad humors, and
annoying habits, under the impression, perhaps, that she is praising
him. Mrs. Fenelby had been proceeding in somewhat this way in her
conversation with Kitty, under the impression that she was showing
Kitty how lovely and domestically perfect was her life, but Kitty
gained from it only the impression that Mrs. Fenelby had become the
slave of Mr. Fenelby and Bobberts.

The more Mrs. Fenelby explained the workings of the Domestic Tariff
the more positive of this did Kitty become. It was Laura who paid
all the household bills, and so Laura had to pay the tariff duty on
whatever came into the house; it was Laura who had to give up her
weekly box of candy because if she received it she had to pay
twenty-four cents duty. To Kitty the Fenelby Domestic Tariff seemed
to be a scheme concocted by Mr. Fenelby to make Laura provide an
education fund for Bobberts. Poor Laura was evidently being misused
and did not know it. Poor Laura must be rescued, and given that
womanly freedom that women are supposed to long for, even when they
don't want it. Poor meek Laura needed some one to put a foot down,
and Kitty felt that she had an admirable foot for that or any other
purpose. She proposed to put it down.

When Mr. Fenelby entered his yard on his return from the city he
stopped short, and then looked up to where the two young women were
sitting on the porch.

"Hello!" he said, "What is the matter with these trunks? Wouldn't
that expressman carry them upstairs? I declare, those fellows are
getting too independent for comfort. Unless you hold a dollar tip
out before them they won't so much as turn around. Now, I distinctly
told this fellow to carry these three trunks upstairs, and I said I
would make it all right with him, and here he leaves them on the
lawn. I hope, dear, you were at home when he came."

"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Fenelby, "I was, and you should not blame the
p