iting. Taking tea with Mrs. Taylor. I've promised her to vote to
invite bids for the church plans."

Babcock looked surprised. "That'll throw Pierce out, won't it?"

"Not unless some one else submits a better design than he."

Lewis scratched his head. "I considered that order for varnish as good
as booked."

"I'm not sure Mr. Pierce knows as much as he thinks he does," said Selma
oracularly. "We shall get plans from New York and Boston. If we don't
like them we needn't take them. But that's the way to get an artistic
thing. And we're going to have the most artistic church in Benham. I'm
sorry about the varnish, but a principle is involved."

Babcock was puzzled but content. He cared far more for the
disappointment to Pierce than for the loss of the order. But apart from
the business side of the question, he never doubted that his wife must
be right, nor did he feel obliged to inquire what principle was
involved. He was pleased to have her associate with Mrs. Taylor, and was
satisfied that she would be a credit to him in any situation where
occult questions of art or learning were mooted. He dropped his hose and
pulled her down beside him on the porch settee. There was a beautiful
sunset, and the atmosphere was soft and refreshing. Selma felt satisfied
with herself. As Mrs. Taylor had said, it was her vote which would turn
the scale on behalf of progress. Other things, too, were in her mind.
She was not ready to admit that she had been instructed, but she was
already planning changes in her own domestic interior, suggested by what
she had seen.

She let her husband squeeze her hand, but her thoughts were wandering
from his blandishments. Presently she said: "Lewis, I've begun lately to
doubt if that stag is really pretty."

"The stag? Well, now, I've always thought it tasty--one of the features
of our little place."

"No one would mistake it for a real deer. It looks to me almost
comical."

Babcock turned to regard judicially the object of her criticism.

"I like it," he said somewhat mournfully, as though he were puzzled.
"But if you don't, we'll change the stag for something else. I wish you
to be pleased first of all. Instead we might have a fountain; two
children under an umbrella I saw the other day. It was cute. How does
that strike you?"

"I can't tell without seeing it. And, Lewis, promise me that you won't
select anything new of that sort until I have looked at it."

"Very well," Babcock answered