was human, and after a long day's work to
come home tired, hungry, and hopeful, to find a chaotic house, an empty
table, and a cross wife was not exactly conducive to repose of mind or
manner. He restrained himself however, and the little squall would
have blown over, but for one unlucky word.

"It's a scrape, I acknowledge, but if you will lend a hand, we'll pull
through and have a good time yet. Don't cry, dear, but just exert
yourself a bit, and fix us up something to eat. We're both as hungry
as hunters, so we shan't mind what it is. Give us the cold meat, and
bread and cheese. We won't ask for jelly."

He meant it to be a good-natured joke, but that one word sealed his
fate. Meg thought it was too cruel to hint about her sad failure, and
the last atom of patience vanished as he spoke.

"You must get yourself out of the scrape as you can. I'm too used up
to 'exert' myself for anyone. It's like a man to propose a bone and
vulgar bread and cheese for company. I won't have anything of the sort
in my house. Take that Scott up to Mother's, and tell him I'm away,
sick, dead, anything. I won't see him, and you two can laugh at me and
my jelly as much as you like. You won't have anything else here." and
having delivered her defiance all on one breath, Meg cast away her
pinafore and precipitately left the field to bemoan herself in her own
room.

What those two creatures did in her absence, she never knew, but Mr.
Scott was not taken 'up to Mother's', and when Meg descended, after
they had strolled away together, she found traces of a promiscuous
lunch which filled her with horror. Lotty reported that they had eaten
"a much, and greatly laughed, and the master bid her throw away all the
sweet stuff, and hide the pots."

Meg longed to go and tell Mother, but a sense of shame at her own
short-comings, of loyalty to John, "who might be cruel, but nobody
should know it," restrained her, and after a summary cleaning up, she
dressed herself prettily, and sat down to wait for John to come and be
forgiven.

Unfortunately, John didn't come, not seeing the matter in that light.
He had carried it off as a good joke with Scott, excused his little
wife as well as he could, and played the host so hospitably that his
friend enjoyed the impromptu dinner, and promised to come again, but
John was angry, though he did not show it, he felt that Meg had
deserted him in his hour of need. "It wasn't fair to tell a man to
br