"I pity his wife," pursued the lady, sighing. "Poor Caroline!" "She has acted like a fool!" Mr. Lewis broke in angrily. "It was her fault that Sinclair went off. She thorned him perpetually with her exactions. She forgot that lovers are only common folks in a state of evaporation, and that it is in the nature of things that they should get condensed after a time. She wanted him to be for ever picking up her pocket-handkerchief, and writing acrostics on her name. A man can't stand that kind of folderol when he's got to be fifty years old. We begin to develop a taste for common sense when we reach that age." "He showed no confidence in her," Mrs. Lewis said, with downcast eyes, "He often deceived her, and therefore she always suspected him." "I think that a man should have no concealments from his wife," said Mr. Southard emphatically. "That's just what Samson's wife thought when her husband proposed his little conundrum to the Philistines," commented Mr. Lewis. Margaret got up and followed Aurelia to the window. "I am very sorry for Cousin Caroline," said Mr. Granger, in his stateliest manner, rising, also, and putting an end to the discussion. "He is always sorry for any one who can contrive to appear abused," Mr. Lewis said to Margaret. "If you want to interest him, you must be as unfortunate as you can." Margaret looked at her friend with eyes to which the quick tears started, and blessed him in her heart. He was passing at the moment, and, catching the remark, feared lest she might be hurt or embarrassed. "Don't you want to come out on to the veranda?" he asked, glancing back as he stepped from the long window. The words were nothing; but they were so steeped in the kindness of the look and tone accompanying them that they seemed to be words of tenderness. {173} She followed him out into the twilight; the others came too, and they sat looking into the street, saying little, but enjoying the refreshing coolness. Other people were at their windows, or on their steps; and occasionally an acquaintance passing stopped for a word. After a while G----, the liberator, came along, and leaned on the fence a moment--a man with a ridge over the top of his bald head, that looked as if his backbone didn't mean to stop till it had reached his forehead, as probably it didn't; a soft-voiced, gently-speaking lion; but Margaret had heard him roar. "Mr. G----," said Mr. Granger, "here is a lady with two dactyls for a name, Miss Margaret Hamilton. She will add another, and be Miriam, when your people come out through the Red Sea we are making." "Have your cymbals ready, young prophetess," said the liberator. "The waters are lifting on the right hand and on the left." The next day they went to the seaside, the ladies going in the morning to set things in order; the gentlemen not permitted to make their appearance till evening.