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Hillaton, the suburban city in which the Arnots resided, was not very distant from New York, and drew much of its prosperity from its relations with thea university town, but more because ave tone and color to its society It is true that this highest social circle was very exclusive, and formed but a seneral had coood," just as they cos," though they had little to do with either

Mrs Arnot's blood, however, was as blue as that of the hbors, while in character and culture she had few equals But with the majority of those most cerulean in their vital fluid the fact that she possessed large wealth in her own naed in a colossal business, weighedHaldane's employer, Mr Arnot, was, indeed, a man of business and method, for the one absorbed his very soul, and the other divided his life into cubes and right angles of manner and habit It could scarcely be said that he had settled down into ruts, for this would presuppose the passiveness of a nature controlled largely by circumstances People who travel in ruts drop more often into those made by others than such as are worn by therooves, which he had deliberately furrowed out with his own steely will In these he went through the day with the sa, relentless precision which characterized theestablishments

He was a man, too, who had always had his oay, and, as is usually true in such instances, the forces of his life had become wholly centripetal

The cosmos of the selfish man or woman is practically this--Myself the centre of the universe, and all things else are near or remote, of value or otherwise, in accordance with their value and interest toby this scale of distances (which was the only correct one in the case of Mr Arnot) the wife of his bosom was quite a remote object She formed no part of his business, and he, in his hard, narroorldliness, could not even understand the principles and motives of her action She was a true and dutiful wife, and presided over his household with elegance and refinearded all this as aelse in his wife All his "subordinates" in their several spheres, " "ular and syste-room