“I tried some of those songs you brought, but I don’t think they go well with the harmonium,” she said, pointing to some music on its rack, “except one.  Just listen.”  She rose, and with the same nervous quickness she had shown before, went to the instrument and began to sing and play.  There was a hopeless incongruity between the character of the instrument and the spirit of the song.  Mrs. Rylands’s voice was rather forced and crudely trained, but Joshua Rylands, sitting there comfortably slippered by the fire and conscious of the sheeted rain against the window, felt it good.  Presently he arose, and lounging heavily over to the fair performer, leaned down and imprinted a kiss on the labyrinthine fringes of her hair.  At which Mrs. Rylands caught blindly at his hand nearest her, and without lifting her other hand from the keys, or her eyes from the music, said tentatively:—­

“You know there’s a chorus just here!  Why can’t you try it with me?”

Mr. Rylands hesitated a moment, then, with a preliminary cough, lifted a voice as crude as hers, but powerful through much camp-meeting exercise, and roared a chorus which was remarkable chiefly for requiring that archness and playfulness in execution which he lacked.  As the whole house seemed to dilate with the sound, and the wind outside to withhold its fury, Mr. Rylands felt that physical delight which children feel in personal outcry, and was grateful to his wife for the opportunity.  Laying his hand affectionately on her shoulder, he noticed for the first time that she was in a kind of evening-dress, and that her delicate white shoulder shone through the black lace that enveloped it.

For an instant Mr. Rylands was shocked at this unwonted exposure.  He had never seen his wife in evening-dress before.  It was true they were alone, and in their own sitting-room, but the room was still invested with that formality and publicity which seemed to accent this indiscretion.  The simple-minded frontier man’s mind went back to Jane, to the hired man, to the expressman, the stranger, all of whom might have noticed it also.

“You have a new dress,” he said slowly, “have you worn it all day?”

“No,” she said, with a timid smile.  “I only put it on just before you came.  It’s the one I used to wear in the ballroom scene in ’Gay Times in ‘Frisco.’  You don’t know it, I know.  I thought I would wear it tonight, and then,” she suddenly grasped his hand, “you’ll let me put all these things away forever!  Won’t you, Josh?  I’ve seen such nice pretty calico at the store to-day, and I can make up one or two home dresses, like Jane’s, only better fitting, of course.  In fact, I asked them to send the roll up here to-morrow for you to see.”

Mr. Rylands felt relieved.  Perhaps his views had changed about the moral effect of her retaining these symbols of her past, for he consented to the calico dresses, not, however, without an inward suspicion that she would not look so well in them, and that the one she had on was more becoming.