proached her uncle, and said in her smiling, cheery way, "How is the
dear uncle this morning?" And, as she spoke, she actually bent down and
kissed his horrid old cheek, red-hot with currie and brandy and all the
biting pickles I can neither eat nor name, kissed him, and I did not
turn into stone.

"Comfortable as the weather will permit, my darling!"--and again I did
not turn into stone.

"Wouldn't uncle like to take a drive this charming morning?" Polly
asked.

Uncle finally grunted out his willingness, and Polly swept away again to
prepare for the drive, taking no more notice of me than if I had been a
poor assistant office lawyer on a salary. And soon the carriage was at
the door, and my uncle, bundled up like a mummy, and the charming Polly
drove gayly away.

How pleasant it is to be married rich, I thought, as I arose and
strolled into the library, where everything was elegant and prim and
neat, with no scraps of paper and piles of newspapers or evidences of
literary slovenness on the table, and no books in attractive disorder,
and where I seemed to see the legend staring at me from all the walls,
"No smoking." So I uneasily lounged out of the house. And a magnificent
house it was, a palace, rather, that seemed to frown upon and bully
insignificant me with its splendor, as I walked away from it towards
town.

And why town? There was no use of doing anything at the dingy office.
Eight hundred dollars a year! It wouldn't keep Polly in gloves, let
alone dressing her for one of those fashionable entertainments to which
we went night after night. And so, after a weary day with nothing in
it, I went home to dinner, to find my uncle quite chirruped up with
his drive, and Polly regnant, sublimely engrossed in her new world of
splendor, a dazzling object of admiration to me, but attentive and even
tender to that hypochondriacal, gouty old subject from India.

Yes, a magnificent dinner, with no end of servants, who seemed to
know that I couldn't have paid the wages of one of them, and plate and
courses endless. I say, a miserable dinner, on the edge of which seemed
to sit by permission of somebody, like an invited poor relation, who
wishes he had sent a regret, and longing for some of those nice little
dishes that Polly used to set before me with beaming face, in the dear
old days.

And after dinner, and proper attention to the comfort for the night of
our benefactor, there was the Blibgims's party. No long, confid