At nine o'clock she dragged her weary self upstairs.
As she passed the door of her sanctum on the way to her bed-chamber, she paused, then entered, and lighted the gas-jet over her desk.

On it lay the page of foolscap, blank but for the words: "He was--" The day had gone and the plot with it.
With a half-sob she sat down and wrote with tired and trembling fingers: _"He was--this morning.

He isn't now!"_ But will not my readers agree with me that she was a genuine wife, mother, housekeeper,--in short, a "chink-filler ?".