eyes wandered over the rest of his stock, swept his wide realm.
It was all a very part of himself. Yes, here was his life--here
was his world. It would be the height of folly to leave it.

At breakfast, his wife ate sullenly, refusing to be drawn into
the conversation, but by a wise compression of her lips and a
flicker of amusement in her eyes, which seemed to say: "Oh, if
only you could see how absurd you appear," she contrived very
cleverly to render Martin miserably self-conscious. Hampered by
this new and unexpected feeling, his attempts to be pleasant fell
flat and he lapsed into his old grimness, while Rose, eating
quickly, confined her remarks to her determination to go to town
in search of a job. Had Martin not talked as he had to his wife
he would have been able, undoubtedly, to disregard her and to
continue the line of chatter which he had hit upon so happily and
which he had never suspected was in him. But the fact, not so
much that she knew, but that from this vantage point of knowledge
she was ridiculing him, was too much for even his
self-possession. It made the light banter impossible. Especially,
as there was no doubt that Rose did not seem anxious for it.

For Martin had not been the only member of that household who had
held early communion with himself. The girl had sat long and
dreamily at her dressing table--the dainty one of rich, dark
mahogany that Uncle Martin's thoughtfulness had provided. It
seemed unbelievable, but there was no use pretending she was
mistaken--Uncle Martin, Aunt Rose's husband, was falling in love
with her. She felt a little heady with the excitement of it. He
was so different from the callow youths and dapper fellows who
had heretofore worshipped at her shrine. There was something so