tenderness was in his voice as he bent his lips to those of his young
wife, murmuring--

"My Edith!" and then touching, with a gentler pressure, the white
forehead of his sleeping babe.

"You were late this evening, dear," said Edith, looking into the face
of her husband, whose eyes drooped under her earnest gaze.

"Yes," he replied, with a slight evasion in his tone and manner; "we
have been busier than usual to-day."

As he spoke the young wife arose, and taking her slumbering child into
the adjoining chamber, laid it gently in its crib. Then returning, she
made the tea--the kettle stood boiling by the grate--and in a little
while they sat down to their evening meal.

Edith soon observed that her husband was more thoughtful and less
talkative than usual. She asked, however, no direct question touching
this change; but regarded what he did say with closer attention,
hoping to draw a correct inference, without seeming to notice his
altered mood.

"Mr. Jasper's business is increasing?" she said, somewhat
interrogatively, while they still sat at the table, an expression of
her husband's leading to this remark.

"Yes, increasing very rapidly," replied Claire, with animation. "The
fact is, he is going to get rich. Do you know that his profit on
to-day's sales amounted to fifty dollars?"