d showed him the little circle of grass which he
had slipped over her wedding ring after fifty-four minutes of married
life. At which his whole face radiated. It was as if, through those gay
blue eyes of his, he poured pure joy from his heart into hers.

"Be careful," he threatened: "one minute more, and I'll kiss you right
here, before people!"

She snapped her purse shut in pretended terror, but after that they held
hands under the newspaper, and were perfectly happy--until the moment
came of meeting the Houghtons on the platform at the junction; then
happiness gave way to embarrassment.

Henry Houghton, obliged to throw away a half-smoked cigar, and, saying
under his breath that he wished he was asleep, was cross; but his wife
was pleasantly commonplace. She kissed the bride, and the groom, too,
and said that Edith was in a great state of excitement about them! Then
she condoled with Eleanor about the heat, and told Maurice there were
cinders on his hat. But not even her careful matter-of-courseness could
make the moment anything but awkward. In the four-mile drive to Green
Hill--during which Eleanor said she hoped old Lion wouldn't run
away;--the young husband seemed to grow younger and younger; and his
wife, in her effort to talk to Mr. Houghton, seemed to grow older and
older....

"If I didn't happen to know she was a fool," Henry Houghton said to his
Mary, washing his hands before going down to supper, "I should think she
was quite a nice woman--she's so good looking."

"_Henry!_ At your time of life, are you deciding a woman's 'niceness' by
her looks?"

"But tell her she mustn't bore him," he said, ignoring the rebuke. "Tell
her that when it comes to wives, every husband on earth is Mr. F.'s
aunt--he 'hates a fool'!"

"Why not tell her yourself?" she said: then she sighed; "why _did_ she
do it?"

"She did it," he instructed her, "because the flattery of a boy's
lovemaking went to her head. I have an idea that she was hungry for
happiness--so it was champagne on an empty stomach. Think of the
starvation dullness of living with that Newbolt female, who drops
her g's all over the floor! Edith likes her," he added.

"Oh, Edith!" said Edith's mother, with a shrug; "well; if you can
explain Eleanor, perhaps you can explain Maurice?"

"_That's_ easy; anything in petticoats will answer as a peg for a man
(we are the idealizing sex) to hang his heart on. Then, there's her
music--and her pathos. For she is pa