He gained confidence when, after a few minutes, the sore subject had not been broached.
To-night, as usual, when he came into the sitting-room where Fanny was sewing it was with a sidelong glance of uneasy deprecation towards her, and an attempt to speak easily, as if he had nothing on his mind.
"Pretty warm day," he began, but his wife cut him short.

She faced around towards him beaming, her work--a pink wrapper--slid from her lap to the floor.
"What do you think, Andrew ?" she said.

"What do you s'pose has happened?
Guess." Andrew laughed gratefully, and with the greatest alacrity.

Surely this was nothing about mining-stocks, unless, indeed, she had heard, and the stocks had gone up, but that seemed to much like the millennium.

He dismissed that from his mind before it entered.