on
business. He wouldn't bother her mother by telling her about it now,
while she was worn out and trying to rest, but Jessie could tell her
by and by.

What he should have done, of course, was to remain at home and
relieve his poor stricken wife of all the painful details that
necessarily followed the seeing about the little coffin, the grave,
and the funeral. But Harry Lang had trained people well for his own
purposes. No one ever expected assistance of any kind from him; so,
instead of missing him, most people felt his absence as only a great
relief. Mrs. Lang and Jessie did so now.

At the end of ten days he came back again, expecting to find not only
the funeral a thing of the past, but all feelings of loss and sorrow
to be put away out of sight and memory.

"You'll be able to take in another lodger now," he remarked abruptly
to his wife as he ate his supper on the night of his return.
"There's a friend of mine that'll be glad to take the room, and he'll
have his breakfast and supper here with me, just as Tom Salter does."

Mrs. Lang did not speak until he had finished; then, without looking
at him, she answered curtly, "I am not taking any more lodgers."

Her husband looked up in sudden rage and astonishment. He had never
heard his wife speak like that before, and it gave him quite a shock.

"Not--not--" he gasped; "and whose house is this, I'd like to know;
and who, may I ask, is master here?"

"The house belongs to the one that pays the rent. This house is
mine, and I am master here, and mistress too," she answered coldly
but firmly; "and if I did want another lodger, I shouldn't take a
friend of yours; I am going to keep my house respectable, as far as I
can--or give it up."

Harry Lang's voice completely failed him, and he sat silently staring
at his wife in wide-eyed amazement. He had thought he had long ago
killed all the spirit in her, and here she was declaring her
independence in the calmest manner possible, and actually defying
him--and he could find nothing to say or do! Her tone to him, and
the opinion, it was only too evident, she held of him, hurt and
mortified him more than he had ever thought possible; for in his own
opinion he had always been a tremendously fine fellow, very superior
indeed to those poor creatures who went tamely to work, day after
day, and handed their money over to their wives; and he thought every
one else was of the same opinion.

"I--I think trouble or som