And a soft hand stole gently up and toyed with my hair.

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith the preacher.  To which I add, especially husbands.  No man is proof against the flatteries of love.  At least I am not, and I am glad of it.

“You can’t stay here, Jennie,” said I.

“I am afraid not,” said she.  “It is Harry’s second summer, and I would not dare.”

“The sea shore?” said I, interrogatively.

“Not one of those great fashionable hotels, John.  It would be worse for Harry than the city.  And then think of the cost.”

“True,” said I reflectively.  “I wish we could find a quiet place, not too far from the city so that I could come in and out during term time, and stay out altogether during the summer vacation.”

“There must be some such, many such,” said Jennie.

“But to look for them,” said I, “would be, to use an entirely new simile, like looking for a needle in a haystack.  There must be some honest lawyers at the New York bar, and some impartial judges on the New York bench, but I should not like to be set to find them.”

I had been beaten in an important case that afternoon and was out with my profession.

“Suppose you let me try,” said Jennie—­“that is to find the quiet summer retreat, not the honest lawyer.”

“By all means, my dear,” said I.  “And I have great confidence that if you are patient and assiduous, you will find a place in time for Harry to settle down in comfortably when he gets ready to be married.”

Jennie laughed a quiet little laugh at my incredulity, and sat straightway down to write half a dozen letters of inquiry to as many different friends in the environs of New York.  I resumed the Evening Post.  As to anything coming of her plans I no more dreamt of it than your grandfather, reader, dreamt of the Atlantic cable.

But though I had been married three years I did not know Jennie then as well as I know her now.  I have since learned that she has a habit of accomplishing what she undertakes.  But this again is strictly confidential.

That June saw us snugly ensconced at Mr. Lines’.  Glen-Ridge is the euphonious title he has given to his pretty but unpretending place.  Jennie had written among others to Sophie Wheaton, n‚e Sophie Nichols, an old school-fellow, and Sophie had sent down an invitation to her to come and spend a week and look for herself, and she had done so; save that two days had sufficed instead of a week.  Glen-Ridge had taken her fancy, Mr. Lines had met her housewifely idea of a good house-keeper, and she had selected the rooms and agreed on terms, and left nothing for me to do except to ratify the bargain by a letter, which I did the day after her return.  And so in the early summer of 1866 the diplomate had carried her first point, and committed me to two months’ probation in the country; and two very delightful months they were.

CHAPTER II.