ishing
touch to a cosey and ornamental home. He had done his best and with all
his heart, and the future was before them.

Babcock found himself radiant over the first experiences of married
life. It was just what he had hoped, only better. His imagination in
entertaining an angel had not been unduly literal, and it was a constant
delight and source of congratulation to him to reflect over his pipe on
the lounge after supper that the charming piece of flesh and blood
sewing or reading demurely close by was the divinity of his domestic
hearth. There she was to smile at him when he came home at night and
enable him to forget the cares and dross of the varnish business. Her
presence across the table added a new zest to every meal and improved
his appetite. In marrying he had expected to cut loose from his bachelor
habits, and he asked for nothing better than to spend every evening
alone with Selma, varied by an occasional evening at the theatre, and a
drive out to the Farleys' now and then for supper. This, with the
regular Sunday service at Rev. Henry Glynn's church, rounded out the
weeks to his perfect satisfaction. He was conscious of feeling that the
situation did not admit of improvement, for though, when he measured
himself with Selma, Babcock was humble-minded, a cheerful and uncritical
optimism was the ruling characteristic of his temperament. With health,
business fortune, and love all on his side, it was natural to him to
regard his lot with complacency. Especially as to all appearances, this
was the sort of thing Selma liked, also. Presently, perhaps, there would
be a baby, and then their cup of domestic happiness would be
overflowing. Babcock's long ungratified yearning for the things of the
spirit were fully met by these cosey evenings, which he would have been
glad to continue to the crack of doom. To smoke and sprawl and read a
little, and exchange chit-chat, was poetry enough for him. So contented
was he that his joy was apt to find an outlet in ditties and
whistling--he possessed a slightly tuneful, rollicking knack at both--a
proceeding which commonly culminated in his causing Selma to sit beside
him on the sofa and be made much of, to the detriment of her toilette.

As for the bride, so dazing were the circumstances incident to the
double change of matrimony and adaptation to city life, that her
judgment was in suspension. Yet though she smiled and sewed demurely,
she was thinking. The yellow clapboarde