harder you press,--you'll find it rather wearisome work, and be glad
enough to come to a bit of good, firm rock, that won't budge an inch
whether you stand, walk, or stamp upon it; and, though it be hard as the
nether millstone, you'll find it the easier footing after all.'

'I know what you mean, Ralph,' said she, nervously playing with her
watchguard and tracing the figure on the rug with the point of her tiny
foot--'I know what you mean: but I thought you always liked to be yielded
to, and I can't alter now.'

'I do like it,' replied he, bringing her to him by another tug at her
hair. 'You mustn't mind my talk, Milly. A man must have something to
grumble about; and if he can't complain that his wife harries him to
death with her perversity and ill-humour, he must complain that she wears
him out with her kindness and gentleness.'

'But why complain at all, unless because you are tired and dissatisfied?'

'To excuse my own failings, to be sure. Do you think I'll bear all the
burden of my sins on my own shoulders, as long as there's another ready
to help me, with none of her own to carry?'

'There is no such one on earth,' said she seriously; and then, taking his
hand from her head, she kissed it with an air of genuine devotion, and
tripped away to the door.

'What now?' said he. 'Where are you going?'

'To tidy my hair,' she answered, smiling through her disordered locks;
'you've made it all come down.'

'Off with you then!--An excellent little woman,' he remarked when she was
gone, 'but a thought too soft--she almost melts in one's hands. I
positively think I ill-use her sometimes, when I've taken too much--but I
can't help it, for she never complains, either at the time or after. I
suppose she doesn't mind it.'

'I can enlighten you on that subject, Mr. Hattersley,' said I: 'she does
mind it; and some other things she minds still more, which yet you may
never hear her complain of.'

'How do you know?--does she complain to you?' demanded he, with a sudden
spark of fury ready to burst into a flame if I should answer "yes."

'No,' I replied; 'but I have known her longer and studied her more
closely than you have done.--And I can tell you, Mr. Hattersley, that
Milicent loves you more than you deserve, and that you have it in your
power to make her very happy, instead of which you are her evil genius,
and, I will venture to say, there is not a single day passes in which you
do not inflict upon her some