Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/77

 was on the verge of rebellion. But this time his heart was steeled.

Anson Pratt was a fine-looking man, an advantage of which he himself made very little account. If he had been told that he had more actual beauty than his wife, he would have been much offended. It was nevertheless a fact, and one which Emmeline knew and gloried in. To-night as she glanced at his handsome face in the halflight cast by the second-best lamp, a sudden misgiving seized her. The face was not at its best. The finely marked brows were contracted, the eyes looked nearer together than was quite becoming, the lips were so tightly compressed as to seem thinner than usual. Decidedly, Anson was out of sorts. Oh! what was it this time? Was it buttons? Or was it fat in the gravy? or" [sic]

"Emmeline," Anson said, in a slightly constrained voice, "I have been making up my mind about something for a long time, and now my mind is made up."

This was evidently a more serious matter than buttons or gravy, and Emmeline's courage revived, as it had a way of doing in the face of a real trouble.

"What is it, Anson? Do you think you'll have to take a partner after all?"

"Something like it," he answered, avoiding her eyes as he spoke. "I've engaged a housekeeper."