opened on my
own state and condition.

It was evening, and I had just laid up the fire in the most approved
style of architecture, and, projecting my feet into my slippers, sat
spitefully cutting the leaves of a caustic review.

Mrs. Crowfield took the tongs and altered the disposition of a stick.

"My dear," I said, "I do wish you'd let the fire alone,--you always put
it out."

"I was merely admitting a little air between the sticks," said my wife.

"You always make matters worse, when you touch the fire."

As if in contradiction, a bright tongue of flame darted up between the
sticks, and the fire began chattering and snapping defiance at me. Now,
if there's anything which would provoke a saint, it is to be jeered and
snapped at in that way by a man's own fire. It's an unbearable
impertinence. I threw out my leg impatiently, and hit Rover, who yelped
a yelp that finished the upset of my nerves. I gave him a hearty kick,
that he might have something to yelp for, and in the movement upset
Jennie's embroidery-basket.

"Oh, papa!"

"Confound your baskets and balls! they are everywhere, so that a man
can't move; useless, wasteful things, too."

"Wasteful?" said Jennie, coloring indignantly; for if there's anything
Jennie piques herself upon, it's economy.

"Yes, wasteful,--wasting time and money both. Here are hundreds of
shivering poor to be clothed, and Christian females sit and do nothing
but crochet worsted into useless knicknacks. If they would be working
for the poor, there would be some sense in it. But it's all just alike,
no real Christianity in the world,--nothing but organized selfishness
and self-indulgence."

"My dear," said Mrs. Crowfield, "you are not well to-night. Things are
not quite so desperate as they appear. You haven't got over
Christmas-week."

"I am well. Never was better. But I can see, I hope, what's before my
eyes; and the fact is, Mrs. Crowfield, things must not go on as they are
going. There must be more care, more attention to details. There's
Maggie,--that girl never does what she is told. You are too slack with
her, Ma'am. She will light the fire with the last paper, and she won't
put my slippers in the right place; and I can't have my study made the
general catch-all and menagerie for Rover and Jennie, and her baskets
and balls, and for all the family litter."

Just at this moment I overheard a sort of aside from Jennie, who was
swelling with repressed indignation at my att