ble to keep her mouth (closed
for it is only a well rested woman who can maintain a cheerful
silence), and avoid a family quarrel."

"No, I think it's better not to quarrel, but I can't take a nap, and
often I'm so tired when Fred comes home, that, if he happens to be tired
too, it's just like putting fire to gunpowder."

I knew that, for I had heard the explosions from across the street. You
know in our climate, in the summer, people practically live in the
street, with every window and door open; your neighbor has full
possession of all remarks above E. And most of Mr. and Mrs. Purblind's
notes on the tired nights, are above E.

I have no patience with that woman, anyhow. She hasn't the first idea of
comfort and good cheer. Her rooms are always in disorder, and there is
no suggestion of harmony in the furniture (on the contrary every article
seems, as the French say, to be swearing at every other article); all
her lights are high--why, I've run in there of an evening and found that
man wandering around like an uneasy ghost, trying to find some easy
spot in which he could sit down, and read his paper comfortably. He
didn't know what was the matter--the poor wretches don't, but he was like
a cat on an unswept hearth.

In contrast to this woman's stupidity, I have the natural loveliness of
the little brown thrush, on my one side, and the hoary-headed wisdom of
Mrs. Owl, on my other side.

Look at the latter a moment. Not worth looking at, you say; angular,
without beauty of form or feature. Nothing but the humorous curve to her
lips, and the twinkle in her eye, to attract one; nothing, unless it
were a general air of neatness, intelligence, and good humor.

But I assure you that woman's worth living with if she is not worth
looking at!

Now her spouse is one of those lowering fellows, the kind that seems to
be at outs with mankind. Just the material to become sulky in any but
the most skillful hands, the sort to degenerate into a positive brute,
in such blundering hands as Mrs. Purblind's over the way.

I had a chance to watch this man one evening last summer. Having no
domestic affairs of my own, as a matter of course I feel myself entitled
to share my neighbors'. And this particular evening I was lonely. It was
a nasty night, the fog blown in from the lake slapped one rudely in the
face every time one looked out, and the air was as raw as a new wound--it
went clear to the bone.

Now on such a night as this I