started in a leisurely way back toward Octavius.

How could he have been so ridiculous as to fancy that Alice--his
Alice--had been changed into someone else? He marvelled now at his own
perverse folly. She was overworked--tired out--that was all. The task of
moving in, of setting the new household to rights, had been too much for
her. She must have a rest. They must get in a hired girl.

Once this decision about a servant fixed itself in the young minister's
mind, it drove out the last vestage of discomfort. He strode along now
in great content, revolving idly a dozen different plans for gilding and
beautifying this new life of leisure into which his sanguine thoughts
projected Alice. One of these particularly pleased him, and waxed in
definiteness as he turned it over and over. He would get another piano
for her, in place of that which had been sacrificed in Tyre. That
beneficient modern invention, the instalment plan, made this quite
feasible--so easy, in fact, that it almost seemed as if he should find
his wife playing on the new instrument when he got home. He would stop
in at the music store and see about it that very day.

Of course, now that these important resolutions had been taken, it would
be a good thing if he could do something to bring in some extra money.
This was by no means a new notion. He had mused over the possibility in
a formless way ever since that memorable discovery of indebtedness in
Tyre, and had long ago recognized the hopelessness of endeavor in every
channel save that of literature. Latterly his fancy had been stimulated
by reading an account of the profits which Canon Farrar had derived from
his "Life of Christ." If such a book could command such a bewildering
multitude of readers, Theron felt there ought to be a chance for him.
So clear did constant rumination render this assumption that the young