"Oh, of course, it is nothing to me, my dear," and Miss Tripp arose with a justly offended air. "I _thought_ I was doing you a kindness when I asked Annita to call and see you this morning. It will be perfectly easy for you to tell her that you don't care to engage her. But when it comes to _affording_, _I_ think you can scarcely afford to waste your good looks over a cooking range. It is your duty to your husband to keep yourself young and lovely as long as you possibly can. It is only _too_ easy to lose it all, and then--" Miss Tripp concluded her remarks with a shrug of her shapely shoulders, which aroused the too impressionable Elizabeth to vague alarms. "I am sure," faltered the bride of two months, "that Sam would like me just as well even if I----" "Of course you _think_ so, dear, every woman does till it is _too late_," observed Miss Tripp plaintively. "I'm sure I _hope_ it will turn out differently in your case. But I could tell you things about some of my married friends that would-- Well, all I have to say is that _I_ never dared try it--matrimony, I mean--and if I were in your place-- But there! I _mustn't_ meddle. I solemnly promised myself years and years ago that I wouldn't. The trouble with me is that I love my friends _too_ fondly, and I simply cannot endure to see them making mistakes which might _so easily_ have been avoided. I'm coming to take you out to-morrow, and we'll lunch down town in the nicest, most inexpensive little place. And--_dear_, if you finally decide _not_ to engage Annita, _would_ you mind telling her that through a _slight misunderstanding_ you had secured some one else? These high-class servants are _so easily_ offended, you know, and on account of _our Marie_--a perfect _treasure_ Oh, _thank_ you! _Au revoir_--till to-morrow!" Perhaps it is not altogether to be wondered at that immediately after Miss Tripp's departure Elizabeth found occasion to glance into her mirror. Yes, she was undoubtedly prettier than ever, she decided, but suppose it should be true about the withering heat of the gas-range; and then there were the rose-tinted, polished nails, to which Elizabeth had only lately begun to pay particular attention. The day's work had already left perceptible blemishes upon their dainty perfection. Elizabeth recalled her mother's hands, marred with constant household labour, with a kind of terror. Her own would look the same before many years had passed, and would Sam--_could_ he love her just the same when the delicate beauty of which he was so fond and proud had faded? And what, after all, was twenty dollars a month when one looked upon it as the price of one's happiness?