ion, for instance, as to my
future. You know I wish to stand for Portborough one day?

SIR W.: _You!!_

JEM: Why not?

SIR W.: Oh, no! Of course! Why not, as you say?

JEM: Yet if I begin to discuss it all with her, _she_ begins to yawn;
and her yawning drives me nearly mad, when I am talking on a matter of
vital interest.

SIR W.: Dear! Dear! I begin to find all this more serious than I
thought. For it does seem to me as if you differed on most subjects.

JEM (_moodily_): So we do.

SIR W.: Ah! I am afraid it may be pretty serious! And after listening to
all your story I can't help feeling, my dear fellow, that there is not
the chance of things bettering themselves, as I had hoped in the first
instance.

JEM: You feel that?

SIR W.: I do! I do! This divergence of taste and sympathies is no
laughing matter. It rather alarms me when I think that the abyss between
you and your wife as time goes on may only widen. (_He indicates an
imaginary abyss, which JEM stares at dubiously._) Yes! widen--and widen!

JEM (_after a moment's pause of half surprise, half pain_): What you say
is not consoling.

SIR W.: At first I thought differently; but now I hesitate to mislead
you, and I admit my heart sinks when I think of your future, after
hearing all you have to say. Indeed, I hope I may be mistaken. I have,
as you know, but little experience in these matters. Your aunt and I
have lived in undisturbed harmony these fifteen years. Never has an
angry word been heard within our walls.

JEM: Whilst Kitty and I squabbled as soon as we had left the rice and
slippers behind us! And since then scarcely an hour has passed without
some sort of difference. I declare, when I think over it, that it would
be best for us to plunge into the ice at once. A separation is the only
hope for us. But, hush! I think I hear Aunt Flo's and Kitty's footsteps!
(_Lowers his voice, speaking rapidly_) For Heaven's sake, don't breathe
a word of what I have said! Fool that I've been! Worse than a
fool--disloyal! Not a word to my aunt!

SIR W.: Oh! I promise you! (_Mysteriously into Jem's ear_) Women are so
indiscreet. Now, I wouldn't tell your aunt for the wide world!

(_Enter LADY FLO and KITTY, who have overheard the last words._)

LADY FLO (_icily_): I beg pardon! We interrupt!

JEM: Not at all! We were merely discussing the relations of man and
wife! Uncle Will has been telling me that a wife--you, under the
circumstances--has everything i