He drove home in silence, and went directly to his wife's room. A bright
blaze flickered on the old-fashioned fireplace, and the walls bowed with
pretty dancing shadows. Harrie, all alone, turned her face weakly and
smiled.

Well, they made no fuss about it, after all. Her husband came and stood
beside her; a cricket on which one of the baby's dresses had been
thrown, lay between them; it seemed, for the moment, as if he dared not
cross the tiny barrier. Something of that old fancy about the lights
upon the altar may have crossed his thought.

"So Miss Dallas has fairly gone, Harrie," said he, pleasantly, after a
pause.

"Yes. She has been very kind to the children while I have been sick."

"Very."

"You must miss her," said poor Harrie, trembling; she was very weak yet.

The Doctor knocked away the cricket, folded his wife's two shadowy
hands into his own, and said:--

"Harrie we have no strength to waste, either of us, upon a scene; but I
am sorry, and I love you."

She broke all down at that, and, dear me! they almost had a scene in
spite of themselves. For O, she had always known what a little goose she
was; and Pauline never meant any harm, and how handsome she was, you