"Mrs. Tate and Mrs. Burnham will stay to dinner, Harriet. See that there are places at the table for them." "Indeed I can't stay to dinner." Mrs. Tate jumped up and came toward the window. "I believe it's stopped raining, and if the thunder is over I'll have to run on home. When I left there everything looked like scrambled eggs, and nobody knows where I am, and I wouldn't telephone just after a storm for forty dollars. There's the sun. I'm going. Good-bye." And picking up her skirts with both hands she ran down the steps and out into the street and across it to her house, half-way down the square. Coming back from the door to which they had followed her, Mrs. Moon and Mrs. Burnham laughed good-naturedly. "How do you suppose she manages it?" both asked, and then laughed again at the oneness of thought. "I've often wondered why she didn't lose breath," said Mrs. Burnham, taking her seat this time in the hall for the few minutes longer she could stay. "But I wouldn't dare try to see how she does it. She's worse than Mrs. McDougal. Did you hear of the letter she wrote Miss Gibbie? Mrs. McDougal, I mean. I'm so glad she's coming home before we go away. To hear her tell of her trip will be better than the minstrels. When are you going away, Mrs. Moon?" The latter shook her head. "I don't know. I'm trying to make Mr. Moon go with me, but I'm afraid there's no use in even hoping it. Richard says it's for the family he is working as he does, and he is honest in thinking it, but if I and the children were to die to-morrow he'd begin the day after the funeral and keep at it just as persistently as ever." Mrs. Burnham looked down at her work as if examining closely the stitches she had just put in. Mr. Moon was the richest man in Yorkburg, but not for years had he and his wife gone off together for a holiday. Presently she looked up. "Men are queer, aren't they? I suppose all wives wish sometimes they could mix up, as one does dough, a whole bunch of husbands and cut them out in new patterns with some of each other's qualities in each. There's Mr. Corbin. He doesn't work enough. Mr. Moon works too much. I saw Mr. Corbin on this front porch the other day reading Plato's /Republic/ as though it were the first reading. It was the third he told me. Mr. Moon--" "Never heard of Plato's /Republic/, or if he did has forgotten it." Mrs. Moon laughed, but as pushing back a sigh. "His republic is Yorkburg and the mills. He can never go away. Often I wonder if it is worth it, the money he is making. He gives me everything on earth but what I want most." Mrs. Burnham again bent over her work. "A woman has to pay full price for a successful husband," she said, presently. "Perhaps Mr. Corbin's philosophy isn't all wrong. He has no wealth, no fame, no great position, but he has gotten something out of life many men miss."