“Don’t you think it just a little unfair to bring up unpleasant things to-day, of all days—when I ought not to think of anything but business. Trivial annoyances of this kind are anything but pleasant at any time, but——” “Trivial possibly to you,” Marjorie retorted, and her face flushed darkly as she bit her lips to keep back the tears that were imminent, “but it’s a serious matter to me, and I want you to know exactly how I feel. I think it is but right that you should, before even another step is taken. It is just this. Not only do I positively refuse to live on a farm, but I will not have my children given a public-school education if I can afford to give them any other!” “Said it all?” Hugh bit off his words, and there was a graveness and injury in his manner that was new to Marjorie, and which she did not fail to catch. “If you have, I think I’d better be getting along, or we may not have any money to quarrel over!” Chameleon that she was, Marjorie Benton was changed in a minute. One soft arm reached up to cling around her husband’s neck, while she pulled him toward her by one overcoat lapel. “Oh, Hugh dear, we weren’t quarreling, were we? Please say we weren’t! Why, we’ve never had a quarrel in our lives, and—oh, I just wanted you to know how I feel, and try to think as I do. You will, won’t you?” Hugh Benton bent and kissed both eyes that looked at him so beseechingly. “I’ll try, dear,” was his grave promise. “You know that your happiness is all that concerns me, just as you know it is for you that I want to put this thing across at all.” Marjorie Benton sighed with happiness as she bade her husband good-by. What a good place the world was after all! * * * * * Busy as she was through the day, Mrs. Hugh Benton often thought afterward that it was the longest day of her life. It seemed that night and the train that would bring Hugh back—back to her with the good news that she was sure he would bring—would never come. In the afternoon there was one slight diversion. Mrs. Birmingham’s big car stopped outside her gate, and the great lady herself came into Marjorie’s humble little home bearing the books she had promised the day before. But for once in her life, Marjorie was not in the least interested in the chatter of the banker’s wife. She did not even take the trouble to offer any prideful reason for Hugh’s absence in New York. She only wanted to be alone to think what he was doing, and to plan what they would all do with the wealth he would lavish on them. Four o’clock, five—six at last. Time for Howard’s and Elinor’s supper. At last they were in bed. The last question was answered, little Elinor’s eyes shutting tightly in spite of herself as she crooned the last lines of her “Wock-a baby” she had had in mother’s lap.