It was on the tip of Mrs. Thatcher’s tongue to say, “I hope you won’t,” but this time something restrained her. There were but few times that she had seen her husband as angry as this, and never at her, though there might have been more provocative occasions. He had bought many things before which she had not liked, without any real friction between husband and wife—it was one of “his” ways which they had often laughed over. But each day’s path is different from that of yesterday—what has been a convenient stone to rest on before becomes unexpectedly a stumbling-block in the way. Mr. Thatcher’s wrath, indeed, gathered its greatest force from the underlying knowledge that he might have done differently. The subject was dropped at dinner, but Mrs. Thatcher could not forbear beginning on it again afterwards. Nevin _must_ see how dreadful it was to have that rug, if it was properly put to him. But he stopped her after the first tearful expostulations. “Never say ‘rug’ to me again,” he commanded briefly. “You’ve said too much already.” He read a magazine all the evening, and after a while she went up-stairs and lay down on the edge of Bobby’s little bed, beside her sleeping child, and wept. It was unbelievable, unbearable, that he could buy that horrible thing without her! And there was no other place in the tiny house to put it. When she looked at it in the morning it was worse even than she had dreamed—it put her teeth on edge. The home didn’t seem like _hers_! She averted her face from it patiently at breakfast, and her mouth drooped pathetically, but Nevin only read his paper and kissed her unseeingly when he left. When he was gone, she and Kitty rolled the rug up into a corner. If any one came they could think she was cleaning house.