to get any comfort out of your furnace is to take care
of it yourself."

"Well," answered his wife from behind the teapot, as he
sat down at table with this threat, "there's nothing
to prevent you, Si. And you can shovel the snow too,
if you want to--till you get over to Beacon Street, anyway."

"I guess I can keep my own sidewalk on Beacon Street clean,
if I take the notion."

"I should like to see you at it," retorted his wife.

"Well, you keep a sharp lookout, and may be you will."

Their taunts were really expressions of affectionate pride
in each other. They liked to have it, give and take,
that way, as they would have said, right along.

"A man can be a man on Beacon Street as well as anywhere,
I guess."

"Well, I'll do the wash, as I used to in Lumberville,"
said Mrs. Lapham. "I presume you'll let me have
set tubs, Si. You know I ain't so young any more."
She passed Irene a cup of Oolong tea,--none of them
had a sufficiently cultivated palate for Sou-chong,--and
the girl handed it to her father. "Papa," she asked,
"you don't really mean that you're going to build over there?"