bosom of my shirt. But, when
I came in at dinner time, her first words, looking at me, were:
"Why, Mr. Jones, there's a button off your bosom."

"I know," said I, indifferently. "It was off when I put the shirt on
this morning. But it makes no difference--you can sew it on when the
shirt next comes from the wash."

I was really sincere in what I said, and took some merit to myself
for being as composed as I was on so agitating subject. Judge of my
surprise, then, to hear Mrs. Jones exclaim, with a flushed face,
"Indeed, Mr. Jones, this is too much! no difference, indeed? A nice
opinion people must have had of your wife, to see you going about
with your bosom all gaping open in that style?"

"Nobody noticed it," said I in reply. "Don't you see that the edges
lie perfectly smooth together, as much so as if held by a button?"

But it was no use to say anything; Mrs. Jones was hurt at my not
speaking of the button.

"I'm sure," she said, "that I am always ready to do anything for
you. I never complain about sewing on your buttons."

"Nonsense, Mrs. Jones! don't take it so much to heart," I replied;
"here, get your needle and thread, and you can have it all right in
a minute. It's but a trifle--I'm sure I havn't thought about it
since I put on the shirt this morning."

But all would not do--Mrs. Jones' grief was too real; and when I,
losing to some extent, my patience, said fretfully, "I wish somebody
would invent a shirt without buttons," she sighed deeply, and in a
little while I saw her handkerchief go quietly to her eyes. Again
and again I tried the say-nothing plane; but it worked worse, if any
thing, than the other; for Mrs. Jones was sure to find out the
truth, and then she would be dreadfully hurt about my omission to
speak.

And so the years have passed. Sometimes I fret a little when I find
a shirt button off; sometimes I ask mildly to have the omission
supplied when I discover its existence; sometimes I jest about it,
and sometimes I bear the evil in silence. But the effects produced
upon Mrs. Jones are about the same. Her equanimity of mind is
disturbed, and she will look unhappy for hours. Never but once have
I complained without a cause. But that one instance gave Mrs. Jones
a triumph which has done much to sustain her in all her subsequent
trials.

We had some friends staying with us, and among the various matters
of discussion that came up during the social evenings we spent
together, shirt butt