ust around the corner of the
house, in a nook slightly sheltered from the biting air, I came upon the
family. Fanchon lay upon the ground, the snow carefully pushed up around
her, and her clinging little ones, who were taking their breakfast. Over
all--Fanchon and her puppies--covering them with his faithful
body--shielding them with his never-failing love and devotion, was my
noble hound--as noble, as faithful a dog, as ever man or woman loved. I
called to him, and rubbed him, but all in vain, and meanwhile stupid,
silly Fanchon, that had foolishly left her warm bed in the cellar,
looked on with cheerful indifference, and wagged her tail."

"Well," said Mrs. Cynic, when I had concluded the reading, "that story
seems to me to prove but one thing."

"And what is that, pray?" I asked, realizing I had been foolish to read
such a tale to such an auditor.

"Why, the truth of Madame de Stael's remark: 'The more I see of men, the
more I admire dogs.'"

That hateful woman! She always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I
know she springs from some corrupt ancestry. She has all the marks of
inward decay upon her.

When she had gone, Mrs. Purblind and I breathed more freely.

"She doesn't believe in anything good," said Mrs. Purblind.

"No," I answered in a tone of disgust, "she has nothing within her to
answer to it."

"How different she is from Mrs. Earnest," continued Mrs. Purblind; "why,
you can hardly convince that woman that anyone is really mean, and
goodness knows she has trouble enough to make her bitter. What a husband
she's got! That man makes me so mad! He's ugly from sheer badness."

I thought for a moment, and then I assented. I really do believe that
man is ugly without cause. He and his wife live at some distance from
us, and I've often visited them. I should like to give you a scene to
which I was witness one evening when I was a trifle ill, and lay on a
divan just out of their dining room.

Mrs. Earnest is like a delicate flower that lifts its pretty face and
smiles in the sunlight of love, but is bowed and broken 'neath the
thunder-cloud and storm. She longs to make her home attractive, but her
husband has no sympathy with this desire; to him home is merely the
place where he finds food and lodging, and a safety valve for such moods
and tempers as he is obliged to keep under control in the business
world.

The efforts that this poor little wife makes, in her timid way, to start
up pleasant sub