ng her anything, she makes half a face in anticipation, and is
ready to shriek with laughter or shake her head with uttermost grief;
and sometimes, if you let her go too far in one direction, she does
both. All her narrations are with ups and downs of her hands, her eyes,
her chin, and her voice. Taking poor, good old Mr. Romer by the roll
of his coat, she made as if posing him, and said: 'There! Now, it's
all very well for you to say that there is anything equal to a woman's
sufferings in this world. I do declare you know nothing of what we
unhappy women have to endure. It's dreadful! No male creature can
possibly know what tortures I have to undergo.'

Mama neatly contrived, after interrupting her, to divert the subject.
I think that all the ladies imagined they were in jeopardy, but I knew
Mrs. Romer was perfectly to be trusted. She has wit which pleases,
jusqu'aux ongles, and her sense of humour never overrides her discretion
with more than a glance--never with preparation.

'Now,' she pursued, 'let me tell you what excruciating trials I have to
go through. This man,' she rocked the patient old gentleman to and fro,
'this man will be the death of me. He is utterly devoid of a sense of
propriety. Again and again I say to him--cannot the tailor cut down
these trowsers of yours? Yes, Mr. Amble, you preach patience to women,
but this is too much for any woman's endurance. Now, do attempt to
picture to yourself what an agony it must be to me:--he will shave, and
he will wear those enormously high trowsers that, when they are braced,
reach up behind to the nape of his neck! Only yesterday morning, as I
was lying in bed, I could see him in his dressing-room. I tell you: he
will shave, and he will choose the time for shaving early after he has
braced these immensely high trowsers that make such a placard of him.
Oh, my goodness! My dear Romer, I have said to him fifty times if I have
said it once, my goodness me! why can you not get decent trowsers such
as other men wear? He has but one answer--he has been accustomed to wear
those trowsers, and he would not feel at home in another pair. And what
does he say if I continue to complain? and I cannot but continue to
complain, for it is not only moral, it is physical torment to see
the sight he makes of himself; he says: "My dear, you should not have
married an old man." What! I say to him, must an old man wear antiquated
trowsers? No! nothing will turn him; those are his habits