appropriated for herself, and as tenderly as a mother, though as shyly as
a girl, put his poor little done-out wife in her bed, too weak to resist
his kind services, indeed, scarcely noticing them.

The next day, when he returned from what he and his friends, by an
agreeable fiction, called an "office," where he generally spent as many
hours as served to give him a flavor of business and a figurative title as
a businessman--where were to be found the best cigars and choicest wines,
and generally a pleasant circle of good fellows congregated--he found
Percy with the most charming little dinner awaiting him; the table
exquisite in the finest, whitest napery, gleaming with silver, sparkling
in glass, and every dish cooked and served in quite Parisian style, and
the little lady herself in the brightest toilette, with such a matronly
air that he could hardly realize the scene of the last night's misery.

"Tears all gone, Ross, tragedy played out, and the little woman who keeps
house for you is herself again, and has been as busy as a nailer. Are
nailers busier than other men, I wonder? All your boxes came. Such bliss
as it was to us poor women to feast our eyes upon all that heritage of
linen and silver, and china and glass! Your mother must have been a famous
manager, Ross, to leave you such a store. I'm so glad we've got that old
place on the Harlem stored with all this beautiful array. Do you know,
Ross, I think I've discovered my especial calling to-day? It's
housekeeping, and I elect myself to go some time to that lovely old
mansion and expend myself in hospitality. I'll invite you to come and
visit me."

Flying about the room, then making him seat himself in the cozy chair
which was placed for him at the table--"the side that's next the fire,"
she said--rattling gayly on of all her day's employment, she caught the