eager and excited as the boys themselves.

“Dad, dad, has there been any more ’splosions?”

“Hasn’t there been no fearful doings on in the world, daddy?”

“Jack! Jack! I’ve got a new tonic. It has done me such a lot of good!”

Jack turned from one to the other.

“No, boys, no,—no more accidents to-day! What is it, darling? You look radiant. What is the joke?”

“Look out of the window for a minute! Margot, you talk to him, and don’t let him look round.”

Edith pinned on the new hat before the mirror, carefully adjusting the angles, and pulling out her cloudy hair to fill in the necessary spaces. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled; it was no longer the worn white wife, but a pretty, coquettish girl, who danced up to Jack’s side with saucy, uplifted head.

“There! What do you think of that?”

The answer of the glowing eyes was more eloquent than words. Jack whistled softly beneath his breath, walking slowly round and round to take in the whole effect.

“I say, that is fetching! That’s something like a hat you wore the summer we were engaged. You don’t look a day older. Where did you run that to earth, darling?”

“Can’t you see Bond Street in every curve? I should have thought it was self-evident. Margot said I was shabby, and that a new hat would do me good, so we went out and bought it. Do you think I am extravagant? It’s better to spend on this than on medicine, and three guineas isn’t expensive for real lace, is it?”

She peered in her husband’s face with simulated anxiety, but his smile breathed pleasure unqualified.

“I’m delighted that you have bought something at last! You have not spent a penny on yourself for goodness knows how long.”

“Goose!” cried Edith. “He has swallowed it at a gulp. Three guineas, indeed—as if I dare! Four and eleven-pence three-farthings in Edgware Road, and my old lace veil, and one of the paste buttons you gave me at Christmas, and some roses off last year’s hat, and Margot’s clever fingers, and 

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