John never doubted that he was right, and in the way of duty; and yet, though he braved it out so stoutly with Lillie, and though he marched out from her presence victoriously, as it were, with drums beating and colors flying, yet there was a dismal sinking of heart under it.

“I’m right; I know I am.  Of course I can’t give up here; it’s a matter of principle, of honor,” he said over and over to himself.  “Perhaps if Lillie had been here I never should have taken such a pledge; but as I have, there’s no help for it.”

Then he thought of what Lillie had suggested about it’s looking niggardly in hospitality, and was angry with himself for feeling uncomfortable.  “What do I care what Dick Follingsbee thinks?” said he to himself:  “a man that I despise; a cheat, and a swindler,—­a man of no principle.  Lillie doesn’t know the sacrifice it is to me to have such people in my house at all.  Hang it all!  I wish Lillie was a little more like the women I’ve been used to,—­like Grace and Rose and my mother.  But, poor thing, I oughtn’t to blame her, after all, for her unfortunate bringing up.  But it’s so nice to be with women that can understand the grounds you go on.  A man never wants to fight a woman.  I’d rather give up, hook and line, and let Lillie have her own way in every thing.  But then it won’t do; a fellow must stop somewhere.  Well, I’ll make it up in being a model of civility to these confounded people that I wish were in the Red Sea.  Let’s see, I’ll ask Lillie if she don’t want to give a party for them when they come.  By George! she shall have every thing her own way there,—­send to New York for the supper, turn the house topsy-turvy, illuminate the grounds, and do any thing else she can think of.  Yes, yes, she shall have carte blanche for every thing!”

All which John told Mrs. Lillie when he returned to dinner and found her enacting the depressed wife in a most becoming lace cap and wrapper that made her look like a suffering angel; and the treaty was sealed with many kisses.

“You shall have carte blanche, dearest,” he said, “for every thing but what we were speaking of; and that will content you, won’t it?”

And Lillie, with lingering pensiveness, very graciously acknowledged that it would; and seemed so touchingly resigned, and made such a merit of her resignation, that John told her she was an angel; in fact, he had a sort of indistinct remorseful feeling that he was a sort of cruel monster to deny her any thing.  Lillie had sense enough to see when she could do a thing, and when she couldn’t.  She had given up the case when John went out in the morning, and so accepted the treaty of peace with a good degree of cheerfulness; and she was soon busy discussing the matter.  “You see, we’ve been invited everywhere, and haven’t given any thing,” she said; “and this will do up our social obligations to everybody here.  And then we can show off our rooms; they really are made to give parties in.”