appearance, and as the three of them sat about the table in their old
juxtaposition, his face relaxed. However, Kate had seen her mother look
up wistfully as her husband passed her, as if she longed for some
affectionate recognition of the occasion, but the man missed his
opportunity and let it sink into the limbo of unimproved moments.

"Well, father, we have our girl home again," Mrs. Barrington said with
pardonable sentiment.

"Well, we've been expecting her, haven't we?" Dr. Barrington replied,
not ill-naturedly but with a marked determination to make the episode
matter-of-fact.

"Indeed we have," smiled Mrs. Barrington. "But of course it couldn't
mean to you, Frederick, what it does to me. A mother's--"

Dr. Barrington raised his hand.

"Never mind about a mother's love," he said decisively. "If you had seen
it fail as often as I have, you'd think the less said on the subject the
better. Women are mammal, I admit; maternal they are not, save in a
proportion of cases. Did you have a pleasant journey down, Kate?"

He had the effect of shutting his wife out of the conversation; of
definitely snubbing and discountenancing her. Kate knew it had always
been like that, though when she had been young and more passionately
determined to believe her home the best and dearest in the world, as
children will, she had overlooked the fact--had pretended that what was
a habit was only a mood, and that if "father was cross" to-day, he would
be pleasant to-morrow. Now he began questioning Kate about college, her