The table at which the pair sat down was laid with exquisite damask and china, the dinner admirable and well served. The dishes came in hot, the maid was deft and comely in appearance, and the master of the house, who always kept watch, in a sort of involuntary self-consciousness, of all that went on about him, was pleasantly aware that the most fastidious of his friends could have found nothing amiss in the appointment or the service of his table. How much the perfect arrangement of domestic affairs demanded from his wife, Fenton found it more easy and comfortable not to inquire, but he at least appreciated the results of her management. He never came to accept the smallest trifles of life without emotion. His pleasure or annoyance depended upon minute details, and things which people in general passed without notice were to him the most important facts of daily life. The responsibility for the comfort of so highly organized a creature, Edith had found to be anything but a light burden. Only a wife could have appreciated the pleasure she had in having the most delicate shades in her domestic management noted and enjoyed; or the discomfort which arose from the same source. It was delightful to have her husband pleased by the smallest pains she took for his comfort; to know that his eye never failed to discover the little refinements of dress or cookery or household adornment; but wearing was the burden of understanding, too, that no flaw was too small to escape his sight. Mrs. Fenton's friends rallied her upon being a slave to her housekeeping; few of them were astute enough to understand that, kind as was always his manner toward her, she was instead the slave of her husband. The room in which they were dining was one in which the artist took especial pleasure. He had panelled it with stamped leather, which he had picked up somewhere in Spain; while the ceiling was covered with a novel and artistic arrangement of gilded matting. Among Edith's wedding gifts had been some exquisite jars of Moorish pottery, and these, with a few pieces of Algerian armor, were the only ornaments which the artist had admitted to the room. The simplicity and richness of the whole made an admirable setting for the dinner table, and as the host when he entertained was willing to take the trouble of overlooking his wife's arrangements, the Fentons' dinner parties were among the most picturesquely effective in Boston. "I have two big pieces of news for you," Mrs. Fenton said, when the soup had been removed. "I have been to call on Mrs. Stewart Hubbard this afternoon, and Mr. Hubbard is going to have you paint him. Isn't that good?" Her husband looked up in evident pleasure. "That isn't so bad," was his reply. "He'll make a stunning picture, and the Hubbards are precisely the sort of people one likes to have dealings with. Is he going at it soon?"