"Probably not, though I never inquired. As she herself has told you, Mrs. Somerton was a saleswoman. Millionnaires do their courting in their own set, where saleswomen can't afford to be." "That was great luck for you, wasn't it? Are there any women like her in their set?" "I don't doubt they think so. Mrs. Somerton says there are plenty of them in every set, rich and poor alike. As for me,--'There's Only One Girl in the World'--you've heard the song?" "Can't say that I have," Caleb replied, suddenly looking thoughtful, "but the idea of it's straight goods an' a yard wide. Well, sir, it's plain to me, an' pretty much ev'rybody else, that that wife o' yourn is the greatest human blessin' that ever struck these parts. Good women ain't scarce here; neither is good an' smart women. I s'pose our folks look pretty common to you, 'cause of their clothes, but they improve on acquaintance. Speakin' o' clothes--ev'rybody, even the best o' folks, fall short o' perfection in some particular, you know. The only way Mis' Somerton can ever do any harm, 'pears to me, is by always bein' so well dressed as to discourage some other women, an' makin' a lot of the gals envious an' discontented. She don't wear no di'monds nor gewgaws, I know, but for all that, she looks, day in an' day out, as if she was all fixed for a party or Sunday-school picnic, an'--But, say, 'I shouldn't wonder if I was on dangerous ground,' as one of our recruits remarked to me at Gettysburg after most of our regiment was killed or wounded." "Aha!" exclaimed Philip, when he rejoined his wife after the store closed for the day. "'Pride must have a fall'--that is, supposing you were proud of silencing Caleb concerning the piano. He has a torment in preparation for you, personally. He thinks you dress too handsomely--wear party clothes every day, and are likely to upset the heads of the village girls, and some women old enough to know better." "Nonsense!" exclaimed Grace, flushing indignantly. "I've absolutely no clothes but those I owned when we were poor. I thought them good enough for another season, as no one here would have seen them before, and none of them was very badly worn." She arose, stood before the chamber mirror, and said:-- "This entire dress is made of bits of others, that were two, three, or four years old, and were painfully cheap when new." "Even if they weren't," said Philip, "they were your own, and earned by hard work, and if ever again Caleb opens his head on the subject, I'll--" "No, you won't! I don't know what you were going to do, but please don't. Leave Master Caleb to me." "You don't expect to reason him into believing that you're less effectively dressed than you are?"