years younger."

"Do you think that he seems quite as contented?"

"Contented!" she repeated, scornfully. "That's just like you, Richard. He
hasn't any right to be contented. No one has. It is the one absolutely
fatal state."

He stretched himself out upon, the seat, and frowned.

"You're picking up some strange ideas, Clara," he remarked.

"Well, if I am, that's better than being contented to all eternity with
the old ones," she replied. "Mrs. Handsell is doing us all no end of
good. She makes us think! We all ought to think, Richard."

"What on earth for?"

"You are really hopeless," she murmured. "So bucolic--"

"Thanks," he interrupted. "I seem to recognize the inspiration. I hate
that woman."

"My dear Richard!" she exclaimed.

"Well, I do!" he persisted. "When she first came she was all right. That
fellow Borrowdean seems to have done all the mischief."

"Poor Sir Leslie!" she exclaimed, demurely. "I thought him so
delightful."