rd in hers, and defended
herself across the intervening couples.

"Why, my dear Mr. Skratdj, you said yourself the weather had not been
so promising for a week."

"What I said, my dear, pardon me, was that the barometer was higher
than it had been for a week. But, as you might have observed if these
details were in your line, my love, which they are not, the rise was
extraordinarily rapid, and there is no surer sign of unsettled
weather.--But Mrs. Skratdj is apt to forget these unimportant
trifles," he added, with a comprehensive smile round the dinner-table;
"her thoughts are very properly absorbed by the more important
domestic questions of the nursery."

"Now I think that's rather unfair on Mr. Skratdj's part," Mrs. Skratdj
would chirp, with a smile quite as affable and as general as her
husband's. "I'm sure he's _quite_ as forgetful and inaccurate as _I_
am. And I don't think _my_ memory is at _all_ a bad one."

"You forgot the dinner hour when we were going out to dine last week,
nevertheless," said Mr. Skratdj.

"And you couldn't help me when I asked you," was the sprightly retort.
"And I'm sure it's not like you to forget anything about _dinner_, my
dear."

"The letter was addressed to you," said Mr. Skratdj.

"I sent it to you by Jemima," said Mrs. Skratdj.

"I didn't read it," said Mr. Skratdj.

"Well, you burnt it," said Mrs. Skratdj; "and, as I always say,
there's nothing more foolish than burning a letter of invitation
before the day, for one is certain to forget."

"I've no doubt you always do say it," Mr. Skratdj remarked, with a
smile, "but I certainly never remember to have heard the observation
from your lips, my love."

"Whose memory's in fault there?" asked Mrs. Skratdj triumphantly; and
as at this point the ladies rose, Mrs. Skratdj had the last word.

Indeed, as may be gathered from this conversation, Mrs. Skratdj was
quite able to defend herself. When she was yet a bride, and young and
timid, she used to collapse when Mr. Skratdj contradicted her
statements and set her stories straight in public. Then she hardly
ever opened her lips without disappearing under the domestic
extinguisher. But in the course of fifteen years she had learned that
Mr. Skratdj's bark was a great deal worse than his bite. (If, indeed,
he had a bite at all.) Thus snubs that made other people's ears
tingle, had no effect whatever on the lady to whom they were
addressed, for she knew exactly what they were wort