thing."

"Oh, come, now, ma; that isn't fair. Except that I married to suit myself,
which is about the only foolish thing that I have done, I have been
tolerably obedient, I think," said Mr. Ketchum, aware that he was on
dangerous ground.

"Do tell us about it. You wanted him to marry some one else,--some one
with a fortune, didn't you?" said Mrs. Sykes. "Quite natural, I am sure."

"She wanted me to marry the ugliest woman east of the Rockies," said Mr.
Ketchum. "But I couldn't stand that face behind my cups and saucers three
hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and I bolted to England, where my
wife picked me up."

"She wasn't so ugly at all, Job, except that her nose was a little
aquiline," protested Mrs. Ketchum.

"Aquiline as a camel's back," asserted her son, in an aside.

"And her hair _was_ rather auburn," Mrs. Ketchum went on, in reluctant
concession.

"Call it pink, as the English do their hunting-coats," suggested he,
smiling.

"But such a dear, _good_ girl, you quite forgot that she wasn't exactly
handsome" ("No, not precisely," interjected he) "when you came to know
her."

"That I _never_ did. It might as a speculation have done to get a cast of
her face for andirons to keep the American child from falling into the
fire; but _marry her_! Good Lord! When I eat anything now that disagrees
with me, I dream of Emily's mouth," affirmed Mr. Ketchum, with the most
laughing mirth in his eyes, his mobile features expressing volumes.

"Her mouth _was_ large, and her teeth _a little_ prominent. But you shall
not abuse Emily any more. You would have been very happy with her, I can
tell you," asserted Mrs. Ketchum. "You would have got over her mouth."

"I might in time have got _around_ it, and I could easily have got _into_
it, but I should never have got _over_ it in the world," affirmed Mr.
Ketchum, with decision. "I would rather be married to that Puseyite there,
unhappy as I am."

This closed the little duel between the mother and son, and another laugh
drowned Mabel's remark to Miss Noel, which was, "Husband is in one of his
joking moods, and does not mean that he is _really_ unhappy at all. He
should not say such things, they are so very misleading."

When quiet was restored, a discussion followed about the parties in the
English Church, and, the question being raised as to who was the head of
the Low Church party, Mr. Ketchum had just said, "Why, _Lucifer_, of
course," when, amid general merr