can drive a wife to desperation, and
from thence it is but one step to madness."

"Who is again playing the gallant to you?"

And in this "again," reposed an expression which displayed that such
scenes were not new to him. Mistress Ulrica, like other women, possessed
her weak points, one of which was that if a gentleman happened to
converse with her pleasantly, she immediately imagined that he was
desperately in love with her. But to her great sorrow, Mrs. Ulrica,
although she possessed entire control over her husband's actions, never
could make an Othello of him. Had Mr. Fabian but known her desire in
this respect, he could have deprived his wife of her sceptre, and taken
up the reins of matrimonial government himself.

A tyrannical husband would have been able to bend Mrs. Ulrica like a
reed, and to have trodden her under his feet which she would willingly
have kissed; but now Mr. Fabian kissed her feet, and therefore she
crushed him to the dust, and although she did not merit the reproach
that Desdemona received, it was, nevertheless, no fault of his. But of
what use would it have been even should she have merited it? Othello was
a fanciful creation which her husband of all men would have been least
willing to personate.

"My Fabian," she would say to herself, "my Fabian can never prove
unfaithful to me. He is too much of an idler, and thinks only of his
sofa, pipe and tobacco."

But we will resume the thread of the worthy couple's conversation.

"Who is again making love to you?" inquired Mr. Fabian again.

Mrs. Ulrica uplifted her reproachful eyes to Heaven. "He asks who! he
has not even observed it!"

"No, my dear wife, I have not."

"And yet he has this entire day--," she turned her face aside, feigning
to conceal a blush.

"To-day! Why we have had no gentlemen guests to-day, except the pastor's
assistant who came with the young ladies, and took his departure before
they did."

"No gentlemen guests! As if he, the accomplished scholar, and
entertaining gentleman, was nobody! and it was nothing that--"

"Well, what further?"

"That he, carried away by those charms, that you have so long observed
with indifference, should become deeply smitten with me."

"What! Do you think he entertains a secret affection for you?"

"Affection, I will not say affection; but passion, which word your dull
brain cannot comprehend, you virtuous and modest Joseph!" the lady
laughed at her own joke, and then continued,