Mrs. Biddlecombe, moreover, had no sympathy with Susan’s ardent desire to remain near her husband, intimately connected with the things which interested him so tremendously. She lacked the quickness of wit to perceive what Susan instinctively recognized, the increasing and ever-absorbing love that this queer young man manifested for his business. In that business, in the unwearying quest for beautiful objects, the wife foreshadowed a rival, a rival the more to be feared because it was amorphous, senseless, chaotic. She took little pleasure in the beautiful furniture which filled the Dream Cottage, because she could never feel that it was hers. She would have chosen things which he despised as rubbish, but they would have been very dear to her. In a real sense Joe’s furniture stood massively between husband and wife. Again and again when she was hungering for soft words and caresses, he would stand in front of the Chippendale china cabinet, and apostrophize it with ardour, calling upon Susan to share his enthusiasm, slightly irritable with her when she failed to perceive the beauty in what she summed up in her own mind as "sticks and stones." She hated to see him stroke fine specimens of porcelain. She came within an ace of smashing a small but valuable Ming jar because he kissed it. Her condition must be taken into account, but above and beyond any physical cause soared the conviction, that her Joe’s business might become the greatest thing in his life, growing, as he predicted it would, to such enormous proportions that there would be no room for her. Once she prayed that his soaring ambitions might be clipped by a merciful Providence. She rose from her knees trembling at her audacity, telling herself that she was disloyal. And then she laughed, half hysterically, supremely sensible that her Joe would travel far upon the road he had chosen, and that it behoved her to quicken her steps, and not to lag behind, for it was certain that he would expect her to keep up. She had to pass some lonely hours. Mrs. Biddlecombe neglected no duties connected with her own house, and the work at the Dream Cottage was done meticulously by the competent servant whom Mrs. Biddlecombe had installed there, and over whom she exercised a never-flagging vigilance. Quinney issued orders that the mistress was to be spared. She was quite capable of doing many things which the robust Maria would not allow her to do. Even the delight of sewing upon minute garments was circumscribed. Quinney, after secret "colloguing" with Mrs. Biddlecombe, prepared a surprise. An amazing basket arrived from London, embellished with pale blue ribbon, and filled with a layette fit—so the advertisement said—for "a little lord." Quinney attached a label inscribed with the following legend: "To Joseph Quinney, Jr., Esq., care of Mother."