"My wife will know more of the North End in a month," Arthur observed with an effort at good humor which did not wholly conceal from Helen a trace of annoyance, "than I should in six years. I wonder she can bear to go into such dirty places. Of course philanthropy is all very well, but I'd rather take it after it has been disinfected."
The bitterness in his tone jarred upon Helen. She felt a pang at his evident dissatisfaction with his wife's views, his want of harmony with his new surroundings.
"Arthur must be disciplined," Mrs. Fenton said, smiling fondly. "If he once learns that the secret of being happy lies in helping others, he'll be unselfish from mere selfishness, if from nothing else."
"Happy!" Helen exclaimed involuntarily. "Does one ever expect to be happy nowadays? Happiness went out of fashion with our grandmothers' bonnets."
"In this world," Edith answered, without any trace in her voice of the reproof which Helen half expected, "perhaps you are right. The age is too restless and skeptical for happiness here; but that makes me long the more for it hereafter."
"But even in a future life," returned Helen, "I can hardly expect to be happy, since I shall still be myself."
"Happiness," was Mrs. Fenton's reply, "is a question of harmony with surroundings, is it not? And your surroundings in the other life may be such that you cannot but be happy."
"No more theology, please," interposed Arthur. "You forget, Edith, that I have been to church to-day, and too much piety at once might impair my spiritual digestion forever."
A perception that the flippancy of his tone shocked his wife, made
Helen turn the conversation again to Ninitta, arranging to go with Mrs.
Fenton in the morning to find the missing girl.
They fell into silence after this, the twilight deepening until only the glow of the fire lighted the room. Edith went to the piano and played a bit of Mozart, wandering off then into the hymn-tunes which she loved and which were familiar in all orthodox homes of the last generation: plaintive Olmutz and stately Geneva, aspiring Amsterdam and resonant St. Martin's, placid Boylston and grand Hamburg, Nuremburg, Benevento, Turner and Old Hundred; the tunes of our fathers, the melodies which embody the spirit of the old time New England Sabbath, a day heavy, constrained and narrow, it may be; but, too, a day calm, unworldly and pure.