charity of undeniable merit and acceptability. She submitted it to her husband, who promptly drew a cheque for five hundred dollars. 

 She tore it in two.  "I will take a cheque for a hundred, Silas," she said. 

 "Why?" he asked, looking up guiltily at her. 

 "Because a hundred is enough; and I don't want to show off before them." 

 "Oh, I thought may be you did. Well, Pert," he added, having satisfied human nature by the preliminary thrust, "I guess you're about right. When do you want I should begin to build on Beacon Street?" He handed her the new cheque, where she stood over him, and then leaned back in his chair and looked up at her. 

 "I don't want you should begin at all. What do you mean, Silas?" She rested against the side of his desk. 

 "Well, I don't know as I mean anything. But shouldn't you like to build? Everybody builds, at least once in a lifetime." 

 "Where is your lot? They say it's unhealthy, over there." 

 Up to a certain point in their prosperity Mrs. Lapham had kept strict account of all her husband's affairs; but as they expanded, and ceased to be of the retail nature with which women successfully grapple, the intimate knowledge of them made her nervous. There was a period in which she felt that they were being ruined, but the crash had not come; and, since his great success, she had abandoned herself to a blind confidence in her husband's judgment, which she had hitherto felt needed her revision. He came and went, day by day, unquestioned. He bought and sold and got gain. She knew that he would tell her if ever things went wrong, and he knew that she would ask him whenever she was anxious. 

 "It ain't unhealthy where I've bought," said Lapham, rather enjoying her insinuation.  "I looked after that when I was trading; and I guess it's about as healthy on the Back Bay as it is here, anyway. I got that lot for you, Pert; I thought you'd want to build on the Back Bay some day." 

 "Pshaw!" said Mrs. Lapham, deeply pleased inwardly, but not going to show it, as she would have said.  "I guess you want to build there yourself." She insensibly got a little nearer to her husband. They liked to talk to each other in that blunt way; it is the New England way of expressing perfect confidence and tenderness. 

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