The young couple, however, from the beginning had faced facts as they were, for at their respective ages of twenty-four and thirty, they not only had a goodish bit of common sense mingled with their affection, but they had also seen more than one matrimonial shallop, at best equipped only for still water and overloaded with unsought responsibilities, founder pitifully in the cross currents of the social sea. The house had at once absorbed all of Kent’s savings, and was consequently, unlike a city apartment, an object to be considered seriously. This was the attitude that his men friends held toward the venture; neither did it seem strange to any one of the twoscore of assorted male temperaments that the couple should desire to spend their first summer entirely away from the paths of conventional social restraint. All the criticism, of which there was a belated April shower, mingled with not a few hailstones, came from the bride’s friends, her own elder sister Agatha taking the lead by saying to a select few who had dropped in a couple of weeks after the wedding to talk it over and hear the latest news of the bride, that Marjory seemed determined to slump, and had no sense whatever of the duties she owed society. While that any woman with her wedding presents, possessing a grain of pride, would try to make a front during the first year at least, adding as a final thrust, “So selfish in Marjory, short-sighted too; she’ll ruin Billy’s prospects for a place in the firm by keeping him away from all his friends. If they had only taken a smart little apartment, they would have been able to give half a dozen select dinners before the season breaks, and possibly they might have managed to get the Head of the Firm and his wife to come to one, and see the silver service he sent them, or at least give them a return invitation, for if Mrs. Coates should take up Marjory, you know their fortune, social and financial, would be made.” “Marjory can entertain in the country quite as well as in town, and it’s far less stuffy from now on; it’s almost May, you know,” said little Mary Taylor, called Pussy from her demure and confiding ways, which none the less covered sharp, if delicately pointed, claws, when their use became necessary for the defence of her friends; she had been maid of honour at the wedding, and was a staunch friend of the bride.