Down in the bottom of his heart was a queer uneasiness: he was not "big," himself; "I am satisfied just to be happy; Fred wants something more than that. She's more worth-while than I am," he thought, humbly. He turned and looked at the two by the fire, then came over, and, kneeling down, took his World into his arms. "Oh, _Laura_!" he said; he rested his head on his wife's shoulder, and felt the baby's silky hair against his lips. "Laura, how perfect life is! I'm so happy, I'm frightened!--and I don't deserve it. Fred Payton is worth six of me." Laura gave a little squeal. "As if any girl was as good as you! Besides, poor, dear Freddy--nobody appreciates her more than I do, but Howard, you know perfectly well that she is--I mean she isn't--I mean, well, _you_ know? Poor Fred, she's perfectly fine, but nobody except somebody like Mr. Weston would want to marry her, because she is awfully bossy. And a man doesn't like a bossy woman, now does he?" "You bet he doesn't!" Howard said. "But I take my hat off to Fred." "Oh, of course," said Laura. "Thank God, she's got a man to keep her in order!" said Mr. William Childs. "What shall we give her for a wedding-present?" Mrs. Childs ruminated. "Give Weston a switch!" said Billy-boy. "I shall miss her terribly," said Mrs. Payton; "I don't know how I'm going to get along without her." Her lip trembled and she looked at her mother, who was running a furtive, white-gloved finger across Mr. Andrew Payton's marble toga. "Oh, yes; it isn't dusted," Mrs. Payton sighed; "you can't get servants to dust anything nowadays." "Fred will make 'em dust!" Mrs. Holmes said, with satisfaction. "All Fred needs is to be married. Miss Eliza Graham told me that she had gumption. I said _he_ had gumption, to get her!" "I wonder if he knows about her affair with Laura's husband," Miss Spencer ruminated. "Some one ought to tell him, just out of kindness." (And the very next day an anonymous letter did tell him, for which he was duly grateful.) "I _hope_ she will make you happy," Miss Mary Graham told her cousin, sighing. "Well, Arthur will make her happy," Miss Eliza said, decidedly; "and that's what he cares about! As for her making him happy, it will be his own fault if she doesn't. She'll interest you, Arthur--that's what a man like you wants." "I'm to be 'amused,' am I?" Arthur Weston said, grimly. "But suppose I don't 'amuse' her?" And as the older sister went out to the door with him to say good-by, he added: "Am I a thief? Of course, I've got the best of the bargain." She did not contradict him. "I think," she said, her face full of pain and pity, "that Fred has got the very best bargain that, being Fred, she could possibly get." "No!" he said, "you're wrong! But pray God she never finds it out." He did not mean to let her find it out!