requests for her autograph.  There were requests for aid from charitable institutions.  There were requests for advice and assistance from young authors.  She had two packages of manuscripts sent her for inspection concerning their merits.  One was a short story, and came through the mail; one was a book and came by express.  She had requests for work from editors and publishers.  Wilbur had brought a letter of congratulation from his partner.  It was absolutely impossible for her to draw back except for that ignoble reason:  the reinstatement of herself in her own esteem.  She could not possibly receive all this undeserved adulation and retain her self esteem.  It was all more than she had counted upon.  She had opened Pandora’s box with a vengeance and the stinging things swarmed over her.  Wilbur sat on the verandah with her and scarcely took his eyes of adoring wonder from her face.  She had sent the little girls to bed early.  They had told all their playmates and talked incessantly with childish bragging.  They seemed to mock her as with peacock eyes, symbolic of her own vanity.

“You sent the poor little things to bed very early,” Wilbur said.  “They did so enjoy talking over their mother’s triumph.  It is the greatest day of their lives, you know, Margaret.”

“I am tired of it,” Margaret said sharply, but Wilbur’s look of worship deepened.

“You are so modest, sweetheart,” he said and Margaret writhed.  Poor Wilbur had been reading The Poor Lady instead of his beloved newspapers and now and then he quoted a passage which he remembered, with astonishing accuracy.

“Say, darling, you are a marvel,” he would remark after every quotation.  “Now, how in the world did you ever manage to think that up?  I suppose just this minute, as you sit there looking so sweet in your white dress, just such things are floating through your brain, eh?”

“No, they are not,” replied Margaret.  Oh, if she had only understood the horrible depth of a lie!

“Suppose Von Rosen is making up to little Annie?” said Wilbur presently.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, she is a nice little thing, sweet tempered, and pretty, although of course her mental calibre is limited.  She may make a good wife, though.  A man doesn’t expect his wife always to set the river on fire as you have done, sweetheart.”

Then Wilbur fished from his pockets a lot of samples.  “Thought I must order a new suit, to live up to my wife,” he said.  “See which you prefer, Margaret.”

“I should think your own political outlook would make the new suit necessary,” said Margaret tartly.

“Not a bit of it.  Get more votes if you look a bit shabby from the sort who I expect may get me the office,” laughed Wilbur.  “This new suit is simply to enable me to look worthy, as far as my clothes are concerned, of my famous wife.”

“I think you have already clothes enough,” said Margaret coldly.