The mother sat for a few minutes on the bed, her candle shaded by her hand, to watch the child's regular breathing. "My darling Franky!" she whispered aloud; and to herself she said, "If only they could all always keep Franky's age!" She smiled as she sighed, thinking of Bessie and her love affair, about which she had many doubts; of Bernard, who, in spite of prayers and chidings, would smoke in bed, and had once set fire to his bedclothes; of Deleah, even, who, schoolgirl as she was, had, and held to, her own ideas, and was not so easy to manage as she had been. If a mother could always keep her children about her, to be no older, no more difficult to make happy than Franky! She sighed, kissed the child, pushed from his face the admired curls, then dragged her rich, voluminous draperies to her own room, where her husband was already, by his silence she judged, asleep. There was a pier-glass in the large, handsomely furnished bedroom. Mrs. Day caught her reflection in it as she approached, and paused before it. Bessie had thought her new green satin might have been made a yard or so fuller in the skirt. Did it really need that alteration, she wondered? She lit the candles branching from the long glass and standing before it seriously debated the point with herself. Walking away from the glass, her head turned over her shoulder, she examined the back effect; walked to meet herself, gravely doubtful still; gathered the fullness of the skirt in her hand, released it, spreading out the rich folds. Then, something making her turn her head sharply to the big bed with its red moreen curtains hanging straightly down beside its four carved posts, her eyes met the wide open eyes of the man lying there. "Oh!" she cried. "How you startled me, William! I thought you were asleep. How silly you must have thought me!" "Not more than usual," William growled. He held the idea--it was more prevalent perhaps at that period than this--that wives were the better for being snubbed and insulted. "I was deciding if to have my evening dress altered or not." "You are never in want of an excuse for posturing before the glass. What does it matter at your time of life how your dress looks? Come to bed, and give me a chance to get to sleep." Mrs. Day extinguished again the candles she had lit, and began docilely to unrobe herself. As she did so she talked. "It all went off very well to-night, I think, William?" "First-rate. Champagne-cup ran short." "There should have been enough. The Barkers at their party never have champagne at all." "When you're about it, do the thing well. What's a few pounds more here and there, when the end comes!" "The end, William?" "The end of the year. When the bills come in." "How did you think Bessie looked to-night?" "I thought my little Deleah was the belle of the ball." "Deleah is a child only. You never have eyes but for Deleah." "Bess was all right."