These reflections were interrupted by the appearance of the little maid announcing that tea was ready, and bringing her two letters.  One was from Susan Holt, and the other, written in a large, slanting, and angular handwriting, was signed Lily Dallam.  It was dated from New York.

“My dear Honora,” it ran, “I feel that I must call you so, for Sid and Howard, in addition to being partners, are such friends.  I hesitated so long about furnishing your house, my dear, but Howard insisted, and said he wished to surprise you.  I am sending you this line to welcome you, and to tell you that I have arranged with the furniture people to take any or all things back that you do not like, and exchange them.  After all, they will be out of date in a few years, and Howard and Sid will have made so much money by that time, I hope, that I shall be able to leave my apartment, which is dear, and you will be coming to town.”

Honora laid down the sheet, and began to tidy her hair before the glass of the highly polished bureau in her room.  A line in Susan’s letter occurred to her:  “Mother hopes to see you soon.  She asked me to tell you to buy good things which will last you all your life, and says that it pays.”

The tea-table was steaming in the parlour in front of the wood fire in the blue tiled fireplace.  The oak floor reflected its gleam, and that of the electric lights; the shades were drawn; a slight odour of steam heat pervaded the place.  Howard, smoking a cigarette, was reclining on a sofa that evidently was not made for such a purpose, reading the evening newspapers.

“Well, Honora,” he said, as she took her seat behind the tea-table, “you haven’t told me how you like it.  Pretty cosey, eh?  And enough spare room to have people out over Sundays.”

“Oh, Howard, I do like it,” she cried, in a desperate attempt—­which momentarily came near succeeding to convince herself that she could have desired nothing more.  “It’s so sweet and clean and new—­and all our own.”

She succeeded, at any rate, in convincing Howard.  In certain matters, he was easily convinced.

“I thought you’d be pleased when you saw it, my dear,” he said.

CHAPTER III

THE GREAT UNATTACHED

It was the poet Cowper who sang of domestic happiness as the only bliss that has survived the Fall.  One of the burning and unsolved questions of to-day is,—­will it survive the twentieth century?  Will it survive rapid transit and bridge and Woman’s Rights, the modern novel and modern drama, automobiles, flying machines, and intelligence offices; hotel, apartment, and suburban life, or four homes, or none at all?  Is it a weed that will grow anywhere, in a crevice between two stones in the city?  Or is it a plant that requires tender care and the water of self-sacrifice?  Above all, is it desirable?