sweet authority of knowledge, which kept warm in his heart the sense of her infinite superiority.  So when, later, they found a house, he entered very gayly upon the first test of married life—­house furnishing!  It was then that his real fiber showed itself.  It is a risky time for all husbands and wives, a time when it is particularly necessary to “consider the stars”!  It needs a fine sense of proportion as to the value, relatively, of peace and personal judgment, to give up one’s idea in regard, say, to the color of the parlor rug.  Maurice’s likes and dislikes were emphatic as to rugs and everything else,—­but his sense of proportion was sound, so Eleanor’s taste,—­and peace,—­prevailed.  It was good taste, so he really had nothing to complain of, though he couldn’t for the life of him see why she picked out a picture paper for a certain room in the top of the house!  “I thought I’d have it for a smoking room,” he said, ruefully; “and a lot of pink lambs and green chickens cavorting around don’t seem very suitable.  Still, if you like it, it’s all right!” The memory of the night on the mountain, when Eleanor gave all she had of strength and courage and fear and passion to the saving of his life—­made pink lambs, or anything else, “all right”!  When the house-furnishing period was over, and they settled down, the “people” Eleanor didn’t want to see, seemed to have no particular desire to see them; so their solitude of two (and Bingo, who barked whenever Maurice put his arms around Eleanor) was not broken in upon—­which made for domestic, even if stultifying, content.  But the thing that really kept them happy during that first rather dangerous year, was the smallness of their income.  They had very little money; even with Eleanor’s six hundred, it was nearer two thousand dollars than three, and that, for people who had always lived in more or less luxury, was very nearly poverty;—­for which, of course, they had reason, so far as married happiness went, to thank God!  If there are no children, it is the limited income which can be most certainly relied upon to provide the common interest which welds husband and wife together.  This more or less uncomfortable, and always anxious, interest, generally develops in that critical time when the heat of passion has begun to cool, and the friction of the commonplace produces a certain warmth of its own.  These are the days when conjugal criticism, which has been smothered under the undiscriminating admiration of first love, begins to raise its head—­an ugly head, with a mean eye, in which there is neither imagination nor humor.  When this criticism begins to creep into daily life, and the lure of the bare shoulder and perfumed hair lessens—­because they are as assured as bread and butter!—­it is then that this saving unity of purpose in acquiring bread and butter comes to the rescue.