His wife leaned on the arm of his chair, watching his animated face fondly, as he recounted the adventures of the night. He pictured the scene vividly, and with a strong sense of humor. "And you don't say that Marie Wakeman is the same as ever?" she interrupted, with a flash of special interest. "Oh, William!" "_She_ called me Billy." He laughed anew at the thought. "Upon my word, Nettie, she beats anything I ever saw or heard of." "Did she remind you of the time you kissed her?" "Yes!" Their eyes met in amused recognition of the past. "Is she as handsome as ever?" "Um--yes--I think so. She isn't as pretty as you are." "Oh, Will!" She blushed and dimpled. "I declare, it is true!" He gazed at her with genuine admiration. "What has come over you to-night, Nettie?--you look like a girl again." "And you were not sorry when you saw her, that--that--" "Sorry! I have been thinking all the way home how glad I was to have won my sweet wife. But we mustn't stay shut up at home as much as we have; it's not good for either of us. We are to be asked to join the whist club--what do you think of that? You used to be a little card fiend once upon a time, I remember." She sighed. "It is so long since I have been anywhere! I'm afraid I haven't any clothes, Will. I suppose I _might_--" "What, dear?" "Take the money I had put aside for Mary's next quarter's music lessons; I do really believe a little rest would do her good." "It would--it would," said Mr. Belden with suspicious eagerness. Mary's after-dinner practising hour had tinged much of his existence with gall. "I insist that Mary shall have a rest. And you shall join the reading society now. Let us consider ourselves a little as well as the children; it's really best for them, too. Haven't we immortal souls as well as they? Can we expect them to seek the honey dew of paradise while they see us contented to feed on the grass of the field?" "You call yourself an orator!" she scoffed. He drew her to him by one end of the long braid, and solemnly kissed her. Then he went into the hall and took something from the pocket of his mackintosh which he placed in his wife's hand--a little wooden dish covered with a paper, through which shone a bright yellow substance--the pound of butter, a lump of gleaming fairy gold, the quest of which had changed a poor, commonplace existence into one scintillating with magic possibilities. Fairy gold, indeed, cannot be coined into marketable eagles. Mr. William Belden might never achieve either the mayoralty or the cashiership, but he had gained that of which money is only a trivial accessory. The recognition of men, the flashing of high thought to high thought, the claim of brotherhood in the work of the world, and the generous social intercourse that warms the earth--all these were to be his. Not even his young ambition had promised a wider field, not the gold of the Indies could buy him more of honor and respect.