“My peerless little wife!” he murmured, as he went to his desk, “you have conducted yourself like a veritable queen to-night. If they can resist your sweetness and beauty, more shame to them. They shall receive her as she deserves,” he sternly added, “or I will repudiate them; such senseless pride of position is beneath all true men and women.” He sat down to his desk to write his letter, and was just in the midst of it when there came a rap on the door. He opened it, and found his mother standing outside, with an expression on her face which plainly indicated that she intended to sift matters matrimonial to the bottom, before she slept that night. “Ah, Truman,” she said, “I thought I should find you here. Can I have a little conversation with you?” “Certainly, mother. Come in, and sit down,” he said gravely, as he rolled a chair forward for her, and then seated himself opposite and waited for her to broach the dreadful subject. “Of course you can surmise what I have come to talk about,” she began—“your wife. Who is she? where did you find her, and what is the meaning of this sudden marriage, concerning which you have not thought it necessary to consult or inform any member of your family, except by a brief cable message and a letter almost as brief?” “Well, mother, you have arraigned me as if I were a culprit, and you my judge,” he returned, with some displeasure in his tone. “But in reply to your first question, ‘Who is my wife?’—the simple fact that she is my wife and a lady should be sufficient cause for you to receive her with becoming cordiality.” “You well know that fact alone is not sufficient to satisfy any one in a position like ours,” retorted Madame Winthrop, with considerable spirit. “What was her name? Who are her family?” “Her name was Salome Howland. Concerning her family, she has none—she is an orphan,” replied Dr. Winthrop, with dignity. He blamed himself now for not having allowed Salome to tell him her history when she was so anxious to do so, for then, perhaps, he could have smoothed the way for her reception by his family, while now the very fact that he would be obliged to confess his ignorance of it would prejudice them against her still more. Madam closed her lips tightly, and there was an ominous glitter in her eyes at his reply. “Howland! Howland!” she repeated thoughtfully; “I wonder if she could have belonged to the Howlands of Albany—they are all right. Who was her family? Where did they reside?” “I do not know,” Dr. Winthrop quietly answered. “You do not know!” his mother exclaimed, aghast. “Where did you find her?” she inquired, while she sat erect, her face pale with mingled mortification and wrath. “In the City Hospital in Boston.” “What! a poor charity-patient from a city hospital your wife!” cried madam, almost breathless from the shock of such an astonishing revelation. “Not at all, mother,” replied her son calmly. “She was, instead, one of the most efficient nurses in the institution.”