After dinner he never wanted to talk now, or to go to walk. He just wanted to read or study. He said he was studying; something about his work. As if once he would have cared more for any old work than for her! And she was so lonely! There was nobody now for her to be with. Mrs. Jones had moved away, and there were never any callers now. She had returned every one of the calls she had had from Burke's fine friends. She had put on her new red dress and her best hat with the pink roses; and she had tried to be just as bright and entertaining as she knew how to be. But they never came again, so of course she could not go to see them. She _had_ gone, once or twice. But Burke said she must not do that. It was not proper to return your own calls. If they wanted to see her they would come themselves. But they never came. Probably, anyhow, they did not want to see her; and that was the trouble. Not that she cared! They were a "stuck-up" lot, anyway; and she was just as good as they were. She had told one woman so, once--the woman that carried her eyeglasses on the end of a little stick and stared. That woman always had made her mad. So it was just as well, perhaps, that they did not come any more, after all. Burke was ashamed of her, anyway, when they did come. She knew that. He did not like anything she did nowadays. He was always telling her he did wish she would stop saying "you was," or holding her fork like that, or making so much noise eating soup, and a dozen other things. As if nobody in the house had a right to do anything but _his_ way! It had been so different at home! There everything she did was just right. And she was never lonely. There were the parties and the frolics and the sleigh-rides, and the girls running in all the time, and the boys every evening on the porch, or in the parlor, or taking her buggy-riding. Nothing there was ever complete without her. While here-- Well, who supposed being married meant working like a slave all day, and being cooped up all the evening with a man whose nose was buried in a book, and who scarcely spoke to you!