e an occasional piece
of perfectly idle and useless embroidery: tidies even, now and
then--just think of it! Of all the--"

My wife stopped me here, and I was glad of it, for I really did not know
what to say next.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Robert. To speak in that way of my
cousin, and your own adopted sister! Don't believe a word of it, Mr.
Hartman. She is sweet girl, though reserved with strangers: I am sorry
you have seen so little of her. A high-minded, pure-hearted, dear,
sweet, lovely girl; she is, and you know it, Robert." Well, perhaps I
do; but there is no need of my saying so just now. Jane has to put in
her oar again, of course.

"Yes, Mr. Hartman, and that is a sample of his hypocrisy. He thinks as
highly of Clarice as we do, and is almost as fond of her; and yet he
pretends to criticize her, just to draw away attention from his own
shortcomings."

"Well, let's drop Clarice then, and go on discussing the present
company, if you insist. We'll take them up one by one: I've had my
turn, and my native modesty shrinks from further praise. You see Mrs.
T., Hartman? She sits there looking so calm and placid, like a mother in
Israel; you would think her a model spouse. Yet no one knows what I
suffer. Mabel, I had not been with him ten minutes last May when he
noticed my premature baldness, and general fagged-out and jaded look;
and to hide the secrets of my prison-house, I had to pretend that I had
been working too hard in Water Street. You all know how painful
deception is to my candid nature; but I did it for your sake, Mabel.
When did I ever return aught but good for evil? Yet O, the curtain
lectures, the manifold ways in which the iron has entered into my soul!
But we brought Hartman here to reconcile him to civilized and domestic
life, and I will say no more. Now there is Jane. She naturally puts her
best foot foremost in company; you think she is all she seems: but I
could a tale unfold. Now mark my magnanimity: I won't do it. She is my
sister, and with all her faults I love her still. Well, if you are tired
you'd better go to bed: Hartman wants to smoke."

XIV.

OVER TWO CIGARS.

When we got out under the pure breezes of heaven, Hartman turned to me
and said, "So you call this reconciling me to domestic life, do you?"

"Well, I want you to see things as they are. They are not as bad as your
fancy used to paint them, or as a duller man might suppose from recent
appearances. Wom