y as the train was late and the
back drive hilly; yet when at length he reaches his home he finds his
wife and Molly still deep in the mysteries of the toilet.

"Well?" says his sister, as he stands in the doorway regarding them
silently. As she speaks she allows the dejected expression of two hours
ago to return to her features, her lids droop a little over her eyes,
her forehead goes up, the corners of her mouth go down. She is in one
instant a very afflicted Molly. "Well?" she says.

"He isn't well at all," replies John, with a dismal shake of the head
and as near an imitation of Molly's rueful countenance as he can manage
at so short a notice; "he is very bad. I never saw a worse case in my
life. I doubt if he will last out the day. I don't know how you regard
it, but I call it cruelty to animals."

"You need not be unfeeling," says Molly, reproachfully, "and I won't
listen to you making fun of him behind his back. You wouldn't before
his face."

"How do you know?" As though weighing the point. "I never saw him funny
until to-day. He was on the verge of tears the entire way. It was lucky
I was beside him, or he would have drenched the new cushions. For
shame's sake he refrained before me, but I know he is in floods by
this."

"He is not," says Molly, indignantly. "Crying, indeed! What an idea! He
is far too much of a man for that."

"I am a man too," says John, who seems to find a rich harvest of
delight in the contemplation of Luttrell's misery. "And once, before we
were married, when Letitia treated me with disdain, I gave way to my
feelings to such an extent that----"

"Really, John," interposes his wife, "I wish you would keep your stupid
stories to yourself, or else go away. We are very busy settling about
Molly's things."

"What things? Her tea-things,--her playthings? Ah! poor little Molly!
her last nice new one is gone."

"Letty, I hope you don't mind, dear," says Molly, lifting a dainty
china bowl from the table near her. "Let us trust it won't break; but,
whether it does or not, I must and will throw it at John."

"She should at all events have one pretty new silk dress," murmurs
Letitia, vaguely, whose thoughts "are with her heart, and that is far
away," literally buried, so to speak, in the depths of her wardrobe.
"She could not well do without it. Molly,"--with sudden
inspiration,--"you shall have mine. That dove-color always looks pretty
on a girl, and I have only worn it once. It can easi