appreciate the true import of our American life. That couple typifies
the elements of greatness in our every-day people. At first blush the
husband's rough and material, but he's shrewd and enterprising and
vigorous--the bread winner. He's enormously proud of her, and he has
reason to be, for she is a constant stimulus to higher things. Little by
little, and without his knowing it, perhaps, she will smoothe and
elevate him, and they will develop together, growing in intelligence and
cultivation as they wax in worldly goods. After all, woman is our most
marvellous native product--that sort of woman. Heigho!" Having given
vent to this sigh, Littleton proceeded to recognize the hopelessness of
the personal situation by murmuring with a slightly forced access of
sprightliness

"If she be not fair for me,
What care I how fair she be?"

Still he intended to see more of Mrs. Babcock, and that without
infringing the tenth or any other commandment. To flirt with a married
woman savored to him of things un-American and unworthy, and Littleton
had much too healthy an imagination to rhapsodize from such a
stand-point. Yet he foresaw that they might be mutually respecting
friends.



CHAPTER V.


Selma knew intuitively that an American woman was able to cook a smooth
custard, write a poem and control real society with one and the same