flowers surrounded
a little green lawn, which was shut in beyond by a belt of old trees
in full foliage. It was an exquisite evening, warm and still; and Dan,
having dined well, and begun a good cigar, was in a genial mood. As he
grew older he attached a more enormous importance than ever to meals.
If the potatoes were boiled when he wanted them mashed or baked, it
made a serious difference to him, and he would grow red in the face
and shout at the servants if his eggs for breakfast were done a moment
more or less than he liked. He was a ridiculous spectacle in his
impatience if dinner were late, and a sad one in his sensual
satisfaction if it answered to his expectations. Beth watched him at
such times with sensations that passed through various degrees of
irritation from positive contempt to the kindly tolerance one feels
for the greed of a hungry child. Dan had been "doing himself well," as
he called it, during her absence, and was looking somewhat bloated and
blotched. His wonderful complexion was no longer so clear and bright
as it had been; the red was redder and the white opaque. A few more
years and his character would be seen distinctly in the shape and
colour of his face; and Beth, who had marked the first signs of
deterioration slowly set in, was saddened by the progress it had made.
Alfred Cayley Pounce would succumb to his nerves, Daniel Maclure to
his tissues; the one was earning atrophy for himself, the other fatty
degeneration. Beth was right. The real old devil is disease, and our
evil appetites are his ministers.

"You seem solemn this evening," Daniel said to her. "I suppose you're
regretting your friends."

"Yes," said Beth; "but I have been away long enough, and I am glad to
be back. I saw some things in the great wicked city that made me
think--Dan," she broke off abruptly, "I wish you and I were better
friends. So very little would bring us to a right understanding, and I
am sure we should both be the better and the happier."

"Speak for yourself," said Dan complacently. "Personally, I feel good
enough and happy enough. We have our differences, like other people, I
suppose; but whose fault is that, I should like to know?"

"Partly mine," Beth acknowledged. "I don't think I should have been so
defiant. But if you had been different, I should have been different."

"If _I_ had been different!" he ejaculated, knocking the ash from the
end of his cigar. "Well, I'd like to know what fault you have