"I can't honestly say I want the change to happen just now, Miss Timson. It means a great deal of agitation, a thorough upheaval of everything. We have an extremely troublesome business on at the Merchants' Guild--I've just come away from a four hours' meeting; and upon my word I don't think I can stand a--domestic revolution at the same time. It would utterly unfit me for my work." He did not add that he had been looking forward to receiving helpful counsel from Mildred, with her clear common-sense, seasoned with wit. Tims wagged her head and stared in his face. "Poor old M.!" she ejaculated, slowly. Miss Timson still possessed the rare power of irritating Ian Stewart. He grew restive. "I suppose I am a selfish brute. Men always are, aren't they? But, after all, my wife enjoys life in her present state at least as much as she does in the other." "Not for the same reason, dear boy," returned Tims. "Old M., bless her, just lives for you. You don't imagine, do you, that Mildred cares about you like that?" Ian flushed slightly, and his face hardened. "One can't very well discuss one's wife's feeling for one's self," he said. "I believe I have every reason to be happy, however things are. And I very much doubt, Miss Timson, whether you can really effect the change in her in any way. At any rate, I'd rather you didn't try, please. I'll have her moved to her room, where she'll most likely sleep till to-morrow." Tims bent over the sleeper. Then: "I don't believe she will, somehow. You'd better leave her with me for the present, and I'll let you know if anything happens." He obeyed, and in a minute she heard the front door close after him. Tims sat down in the chair which he had vacated. "Poor old M.!" she ejaculated again, presently, and added: "What idiots men are! All except old Carus and Mr. Fitzallan. He's sensible enough." Her thoughts wandered away, until they were recalled by the door opening a mere chink to let a child slip into the room--a slim, tall child, in a blue smock--Tony. His thick, dark hair was cropped boywise now, and the likeness of the beautiful, sensitive child face to Ian's was more marked. It was evident that in him there was to be no blending of strains, but an exact reproduction of the paternal type. Tims was in his eyes purely a comic character, but the ready grin with which he usually greeted her was replaced to-day by a little, inattentive smile. He went past her and stood by the sofa, looking fixedly at his mother with a grave mouth and a slight frown on his forehead. At length he turned away, and was about to leave the room as quietly as he had come, when Tims brought him to a stand-still at her knee. He held up an admonishing finger. "Sh! Don't you wake my Mummy, or Daddy 'll be angry with you." "We sha'n't wake her; she's too fast asleep. Tell me why you looked so solemnly at her just now, Tony?"