dull high lights across its graceful surfaces.

Sylvia colored with pleasure, but she had been brought up to disclaim
her possessions to others than her own family. "Mrs. Jim Jones has
got a beautiful one she bought selling Calkin's soap," she said. "She
thinks it's prettier than this, and I must say it's real handsome.
It's solid oak and has a looking-glass on it. This hasn't got any
glass."

Horace laughed. He gazed at a corner-closet with diamond-paned doors.

"That is a perfectly jolly closet, too," he said; "and those are
perfect treasures of old dishes."

"I think they are rather pretty," said Henry. He was conscious of an
admiration for the old blue-and-white ware with its graceful shapes
and quaint decorations savoring of mystery and the Far East, but he
realized that his view was directly opposed to his wife's. This time
Sylvia spoke quite in earnest. As far as the Indian china was
concerned, she had her convictions. She was a cheap realist to the
bone.

She sniffed. "I suppose there's those that likes it," said she, "but
as for me, I can't see how anybody with eyes in their heads can look
twice at old, cloudy, blue stuff like that when they can have nice,
clear, white ware, with flowers on it that _are_ flowers, like this
Calkin's soap set. There ain't a thing on the china in that closet
that's natural. Whoever saw a prospect all in blue, the trees and
plants, and heathen houses, and the heathen, all blue? I like things
to be natural, myself."

Horace laughed, and extended his plate for another piece of pie.

"It's an acquired taste," he said.

"I never had any time to acquire tastes. I kept what the Lord gave
me," said Sylvia, but she smiled. She was delighted because Horace
had taken a second piece of pie.

"I didn't know as you'd relish our fare after living in a Boston
hotel all your vacation," said she.

"People can talk about hotel tables all they want to," declared
Horace. "Give me home cooking like yours every time. I haven't eaten
a blessed thing that tasted good since I went away."

Henry and Sylvia looked lovingly at Horace. He was a large man,
blond, with a thick shock of fair hair, and he wore gray tweeds
rather loose for him, which had always distressed Sylvia. She had
often told Henry that it seemed to her if he would wear a nice suit
of black broadcloth it would be more in keeping with his position as
high-school principal. He wore a red tie, too, and Sylvia had an
inborn convic