"She could make it, but I doubt if you would care to drink it," she returned, fretfully. "And she wants to go out, too. She has got a young man, I know she has; I taxed her with it this very morning, and she was as impertinent as possible." "My dear Joa"--for his sense of fairness was roused by this--"why should not the poor girl have a lover? She is very good-looking, and as long as she conducts herself properly I can see no objection to the young man." "Yes, and she will be having him in, and giving him supper when we are out--not that I ever do go out, Heaven knows! I declare I quite envy you, Thorold, going out every morning to your work. Women's lives are far more dull and monotonous than men's;" here Joanna's voice waxed more plaintive than ever--it was naturally rather a sweet voice, but fretfulness and discontent had deadened the harmony. If, as they say, the closing of an eyelid will shut out the lustre of a planet, so, to Joanna, the small everyday worries seemed to obliterate the larger and grander interests of life. Jemima's good looks, her lover, her small impertinences and misdemeanours, loomed like gigantic shadows on her horizon. "If she could only learn the right proportion of things!" Thorold had said once to Althea, almost in despair. When Joanna made her dolorous little speech, Thorold raised his eyes from his plate and looked at her. "Why do you not go to the Red House oftener?" he asked, gravely. "You know how glad they would be to have you. You stay at home too much, Joa, but it is your own fault, you know. Doreen and Althea are always sending you invitations." "Yes, I know, and I am very fond of Althea. But somehow I never care to go to the Red House; it reminds me too much of the dear old Manor House. That room of Althea's makes me quite shiver when I enter it." "Oh, I would not give way to those feelings, Joa," he returned, hastily. "In life one has to harden one's self to all sorts of things, and it is no use moping and brooding over troubles that cannot be altered. If Jemima wants to go out, perhaps we had better not wait any longer." And then he lighted his reading lamp, and unfolded his paper. In spite of the well-cooked chops, supper had certainly not been more festive than usual. And then a strange fancy came to Thorold. How would it be with him if some younger, brighter face were to be opposite to him, evening after evening. Would not his home, humble as it was, be a very different place? He knew why he was happier in his chambers at Lincoln's Inn. To his reserved temperament, solitude was far preferable than uncongenial fellowship with this small human soul, this weary little pilgrim forever carrying her heavy pack of worries. "Poor dear Joa," he said to himself, for his keen eyes had noticed the reddened eyelids. "Very likely she remembers that it is Tristram's birthday, and that he is thirty-eight to-day."