"Always see to putting away your silver, Sarah!" counselled the mother. "And you had ought to get a common set of dinner and breakfast things. This china is too nice for every-day use. Of course, Mr. Hammond can afford to get more when this is broken; but it's a first-rate rule, child, as you'll find, to put your money where it will show most. That's the secret of my management. Mr. Hammond must give you an allowance for housekeeping and pin-money. Speak to him about it right away. Men are more liberal while the honeymoon lasts than they ever are afterwards. Strike while the iron is hot. You can't complain of your husband, so far. He has set you up very handsome. If I had been consulted about furnishing, I would have saved enough off of those third-story chambers and the kitchen to buy another pair of mirrors for your parlors. The mantel has a bare look. I noticed it directly I went in. To be sure, the Parisian ornaments are pretty and tasty, and expensive enough--dear knows! but they don't make much of a display." "I do not like the fashion of lining walls with mirrors," said Sarah, in her old, short way; "and am satisfied with the house as it is. Shall we join the gentlemen?" Nothing had ever showed her more plainly the degradation of her false position than the confident air her mother wore in making her coarse observations, and instructing her as to the method of managing her generous, confiding husband. It was the free-masonry of a mercenary wife, whose spouse would have been better represented to her mind by his money-bag than his own proper person, towards another of the same craft, who rated her lawful banker by corresponding rules. "Will I then really grow to be like her and her associates?" Sarah questioned inly. "Will a fine house and its fixtures, will dress and equipage and pin-money so increase in importance as to fill this aching vacuum in my heart? Will a position in life, and the envy of my neighbors, make up to me for the loss of the love of which I used to dream, the happiness which the world owes me yet? Is this the coin in which it would redeem its promises?" Mr. Hunt's mild features wore their happiest expression this evening. He arose at the ladies' entrance, and beckoned his daughter to a seat on the sofa beside him. "You are a little travel-worn!" he said. "Your cheeks are not very ruddy." "Did you ever see them when they were?" asked Sarah, playfully. "She was always just that pale when she was a baby," said Mrs. Hunt, setting herself in the arm-chair proffered by her son-in-law. "Lucy stole all the roses from her." Sarah may have thought that other and more grievous thefts had succeeded this doubtful one, but she neither looked nor said this. "And that reminds me, Mr. H.! Did you bring Lucy's letter for Sarah to read?" "I did." Mr. Hunt produced it. "Keep it, and read it at your leisure, Sarah."