"A pack of six women travel by themselves?" blurted Lewis. "Suppose there were an accident?" he added, after searching his brain for a less feeble argument. "We should either be killed or we shouldn't be," said Selma firmly. "We are perfectly well able to take care of ourselves. Women travel alone everywhere every-day--that is, intelligent American women." Lewis looked a little sad. "I thought, perhaps, it would seem nice for you to go with me, Selma. We haven't been off since we were married, and I can get away now just as well as not." "So it would have been if I weren't one of the delegation. I should think you would see, Lewis, that your coming is out of the question." So it proved. Selma set forth for Chicago on the appointed day, made many new acquaintances among the delegates, and was pleased to be introduced and referred to publicly as Mrs. Selma Babcock--a form of address to which she was unaccustomed at Benham. On the night before her departure, being in pleasant spirits, she told Lewis that her absence would do him good, and that he would appreciate her all the more on her return. She was to be gone a week. The first twenty-four hours passed gloomily for Babcock. Then he began to take notice. He noticed that the county fair was fixed for the following days. He had hoped to carry Selma there, but, as she was not to be had, it seemed to him sensible to get what enjoyment from it he could alone. Then it happened that a former companion of his bachelor days and his bachelor habits, a commercial traveller, whom he had not seen since his marriage, appeared on the scene. "The very man for me!" he ejaculated, jubilantly. The obscurity of this remark was presently made clear to his friend, who had hoped perhaps to enjoy a snug evening at Babcock's domestic hearth, but who was not averse to playing a different part--that of cheering up a father who had lost his baby, and whose wife had left him in the lurch. He assured Babcock that a regular old time outing--a shaking up--would do him good, and Babcock was ready to agree with him, intending thereby a free-handed two days at the fair. As has been intimated, his manner of life before marriage had not been irreproachable, but he had been glad of an opportunity to put an end to the mildly riotous and coarse bouts which disfigured his otherwise commonplace existence. He had no intention now of misbehaving himself, but he felt the need of being enlivened. His companion was a man who delighted in what he called a lark, and whose only method of insuring a lark was by starting in with whiskey and keeping it up. That had been also Babcock's former conception of a good time, and though he had dimly in mind that he was now a husband and church-member, he strove to conduct himself in such a manner as to maintain his self-respect without becoming a spoil sport.