sity. He returned Kate's ardent little storm
of kisses with some embarrassment, but he was unfeignedly pleased at her
appearance, and as the three of them sat about the table in their old
juxtaposition, his face relaxed. However, Kate had seen her mother look
up wistfully as her husband passed her, as if she longed for some
affectionate recognition of the occasion, but the man missed his
opportunity and let it sink into the limbo of unimproved moments.

"Well, father, we have our girl home again," Mrs. Barrington said with
pardonable sentiment.

"Well, we've been expecting her, haven't we?" Dr. Barrington replied,
not ill-naturedly but with a marked determination to make the episode
matter-of-fact.

"Indeed we have," smiled Mrs. Barrington. "But of course it couldn't
mean to you, Frederick, what it does to me. A mother's--"

Dr. Barrington raised his hand.

"Never mind about a mother's love," he said decisively. "If you had seen
it fail as often as I have, you'd think the less said on the subject the
better. Women are mammal, I admit; maternal they are not, save in a
proportion of cases. Did you have a pleasant journey down, Kate?"

He had the effect of shutting his wife out of the conversation; of
definitely snubbing and discountenancing her. Kate knew it had always
been like that, though when she had been young and more passionately
determined to believe her home the best and dearest in the world, as
children will, she had overlooked the fact--had pretended that what was
a habit was only a mood, and that if "father was cross" to-day, he would
be pleasant to-morrow. Now he began questioning Kate about college, her
instructors and her friends. There was conversation enough, but the
man's wife sat silent, and she knew that Kate knew that he expected
her to do so.

Custard was brought on and Mrs. Barrington diffidently served it. Her
husband gave one glance at it.

"Curdled!" he said succinctly, pushing his plate from him. "It's a pity
it couldn't have been right Kate's first night home."

Kate thought there had been so much that was not right her first night
home, that a spoiled confection was hardly worth comment.

"I'm dreadfully sorry," Mrs. Barrington said. "I suppose I should have
made it myself, but I went down to the train--"

"That didn't take all the afternoon, did it?" the doctor asked.

"I was doing things around the house--"

"Putting flowers in my room, I know, mummy," broke in Kate, "and
pol