flanking movements! And even to-day there the thing defies her--a
coal-box, with a broad smile that shows its black teeth, thick and
squat, filling a snug corner and swaggering in unmanly triumph over the
outrage upon her delicacy that it commits.

One of Euphemia's brightest ideas was to burn wood. Logs make even a
picturesque pile in a corner--look "uncommon." But there are objections
to wood. Wood finely divided burns with gay quirks and jets of flame,
and making cheerful crackling noises the while; but its warmth and
brightness are as evanescent as love's young dream. And your solid log
has a certain irritating inertness. It is an absentee fuel, spending its
fire up the chimney, and after its youthful clouds of glory turns but a
cheerless side of black and white char towards the room. And, above all,
the marital mind is strangely exasperated by the log. Smite it with the
poker, and you get but a sullen resonance, a flight of red sparks, a
sense of an unconquerable toughness. It is worse than coke. The crisp
fracture of coal, the spitting flames suddenly leaping into existence
from the shiny new fissures, are altogether wanting. Old-seasoned timber
burns indeed most delightfully, but then it is as ugly as coal, and
withal very dear. So Euphemia went back to coal again with a sigh.
Possibly if Euphemia had been surrounded by the wealth she deserves this
trouble would not have arisen. A silent servant, bearing the due dose of
fresh fuel, would have come gliding from a mysterious Beneath, restored
the waning animation of the grate, and vanished noiselessly again. But
this was beyond the range of Euphemia's possibilities. And so we are
face to face with this problem of the scuttle again.

At first she would feign there was no such thing as coal. It was too
horrible. Only a Zola would admit it. It was the epoch of concealment.
The thing purchased was like a little cupboard on four legs; it might
have held any convenient trifle; and there was a shelf upon the top and
a book of poetry and a piece of crackled Satsuma. You took a little
brass handle and pulled it down, and the front of the little cupboard
came forward, and there you found your coal. But a dainty little
cupboard can no more entertain black coal and inelegant firewood and
keep its daintiness than a mind can entertain black thoughts and yet be
sweet. This cabinet became demoralised with amazing quickness; it became
incontinent with its corruptions, a hinge got t