shiny with glasses and decorated china. Through an open door he
saw into the kitchen, where the fire was crackling in the stove
and the evening meal already well under way. Out in the small
back yard was George, Jr., frolicking with a young dog he had
recently purchased, and in the parlour Jessica was playing at the
piano, the sounds of a merry waltz filling every nook and corner
of the comfortable home. Every one, like himself, seemed to have
regained his good spirits, to be in sympathy with youth and
beauty, to be inclined to joy and merry-making. He felt as if he
could say a good word all around himself, and took a most genial
glance at the spread table and polished sideboard before going
upstairs to read his paper in the comfortable armchair of the
sitting-room which looked through the open windows into the
street. When he entered there, however, he found his wife
brushing her hair and musing to herself the while.

He came lightly in, thinking to smooth over any feeling that
might still exist by a kindly word and a ready promise, but Mrs.
Hurstwood said nothing. He seated himself in the large chair,
stirred lightly in making himself comfortable, opened his paper,
and began to read. In a few moments he was smiling merrily over
a very comical account of a baseball game which had taken place
between the Chicago and Detroit teams.

The while he was doing this Mrs. Hurstwood was observing him
casually through the medium of the mirror which was before her.
She noticed his pleasant and contented manner, his airy grace and
smiling humour, and it merely aggravated her the more. She
wondered how he could think to carry himself so in her presence
after the cynicism, indifference, and neglect he had heretofore