“No, no; don’t go yet!” Mrs. Laurence’s hand pinioned him fast. She had known all along that she would forgive him when she had spoken her mind—what else can one do but forgive when one loves? Oh, that was but a little part of it—the forgiveness! The real need all the time was that he should be reinstated on the pedestal from which his own act had driven him. He must be, not the Will whom she forgave, but the Will whom she adored. Her certainty dropped from her; she began reasonably, to grow more and more tremulously beseeching. “Will, _please_ listen! I can’t bear it when you look at me as if you didn’t like me. Of course, I knew all the time that you were sorry—I knew you meant to tell me the truth! _Of course_, you can’t always think of it at the moment when I take you by surprise and fly at you and scold you—nobody could! I don’t wonder that you hate to tell me things, when I make it so hard for you. I ought to be a hundred times nicer than I am. When I saw _her_ husband standing there to-night you looked so fine and beautiful and good—and _truthful_”—a sob, not tears, but just a sob broke athwart the words—“I thank God every day on my _knees_ that I’m married to you!” Her arms dropped from their hold, but his were around her now, pressing her closer, and still closer; the eyes he bent upon the upturned face were smiling, yet a little moist, too—his tender voice had in it every admission that she longed for as he whispered: “Oh, Nan—foolish, foolish Nan! Such a _sweet_ woman——!” The Triumph of Father The Triumph of Father “Well, what do you want me to do to-day, Min? Speak up quick.” Mr. Harlow, in his holiday morning costume, consisting of a pair of old and baggy trousers, an outing shirt and an utterly incongruous coat, with bulging pockets, stood by the piazza steps, a disreputable grey felt hat held in one hand. “It’s nearly ten o’clock, and I must go down-town and get some nails before the stores close for the day. I had expected to send one of the boys, but Betty tells me that Herbert has gone to play in the golf tournament, and Jack is off to the ball game. If there’s anything round the house you want mended, now’s your time to tell me.” “We want a screw for the wringer—or perhaps it’s a nut,” said Mrs. Harlow, hazily, her eyes fixed on her husband. “The top is off the piano-stool again, and there is the arm of the red chair,—you’ll find it in the closet under the stairs,—and one of the faucets in the kitchen sink will keep running. Oh, yes, and there’s a caster broken off the refrigerator, too; we have to prop it up with a block of wood, but it’s so crooked that the water from it goes all over the cellar floor. Please don’t forget it, will you? But, David, you are not going down to the village looking like that? It’s really disgraceful! If any one should see you! It won’t take you a minute to go up-stairs and change your coat and put on another necktie.”