"I saw you had the place in your eyes. La, Robert! I can read you
like a book. You give in to me in little things, and that pleases a
woman, you know. You must decide a question like this, for it is a
question of support for us all, and you can do better on a place
that suits you than on one never quite to your mind. It has grown
more and more clear to me all the evening that you have fallen in
love with the old place, and that settles it."

"Well, you women have a way of your own of deciding a question."

My wife was too shrewd not to make a point in her favor, and she
remarked, with a complacent nod, "I have a way of my own, but there
are women in the world who would have insisted on a smart new
house."

"Little wife," I said, laughing, "there was another girl that I was
a little sweet on before I met you. I'm glad you are not the other
girl."

She put her head a little to one side with the old roguish look
which used to be so distracting when the question of questions with
me was whether pretty Winnie Barlow would give half a dozen young
fellows the go-by for my sake, and she said, "Perhaps the other girl
is glad too."

"I've no doubt she is," I sighed, "for her husband is getting rich.
I don't care how glad she is if my girl is not sorry."

"You do amuse me so, Robert! You'd like to pass for something of a
philosopher, with your brown studies into the hidden causes and