ke her discontented with herself. This
warmed her heart at once toward Pauline. To be sure Pauline manifested
the same sort of social grace which distinguished Mrs. Hallett Taylor,
but Selma, though she still regarded this with suspicion, for the reason
that she had not yet become mistress of it, was secretly content to know
that she had married into a family which possessed it. Altogether she
was agreeably impressed by her scrutiny of her new sister, who, in her
opinion, would not be an irritating rival either in looks or character,
and yet who was a pleasing and sufficiently serious-minded person--in
short just the sort of sister-in-law which she yearned to have.

Pauline, on her part, was duly fascinated by the delicate and inspiring
beauty of her brother's wife. She understood at once why Wilbur had
chosen her in preference to any one of his own circle. Selma obviously
symbolized by her grave, tense, thin face the serious ideals of living
and womanhood, which had been dear to his meditation as a youth and a
part of his heritage from his New England ancestors. It made her joyous
to feel that he had found a wife who would be a constant source of
inspiration to him, for she knew that Wilbur would not be happy with any
one who fell short of his ideal as to what a woman should be. She knew
her brother well, and she understood how deeply in earnest he was to
make the most of his life, and what an exalted vision he entertained as
to the possibilities for mutual sympathy and help between husband and
wife.

Partly as a consequence of their limited means, partly owing to
absorption in their respective studies and interests, the Littletons,
though of gentle stock, lived simple lives according to New York
standards. They were aware of the growth of luxury resulting from the
accumulation of big fortunes since the war. As an architect, Wilbur saw
larger and more elaborate public and private buildings being erected on
every side. As a house-keeper and a woman with social interests, Pauline
knew that the power of money was revolutionizing the public taste in the
matter of household expenditure; that in the details of domestic life
there was more color and more circumstance, and that people who were
well-to-do, and many who were not, were requiring as daily comforts all
sorts of things to which they had been unaccustomed. But though they
both thus knew vaguely that the temper of society had changed, and that
sober citizens and thei