ich had almost kept itself, and had given him little to do beside
ordering the dinners, while faithful old Catherine and her niece Susan
were his aids) suddenly became a great care to him. Catherine, who had
been the main-stay of the family for many years, died after a short
illness, and Susan must needs choose that time, of all others, for being
married to one of the second hands in the mill. There followed a long
and dismal season of experimenting, and for a time there was a
procession of incapable creatures going in at one kitchen door and out
of the other. His wife would not have liked to say so, but it seemed to
her that Tom was growing fussy about the house affairs, and took more
notice of those minor details than he used. She wished more than once,
when she was tired, that he would not talk so much about the
housekeeping; he seemed sometimes to have no other thought.

In the early days of Mrs. Wilson's business life, she had made it a rule
to consult her husband on every subject of importance; but it had
speedily proved to be a formality. Tom tried manfully to show a deep
interest which he did not feel, and his wife gave up, little by little,
telling him much about her affairs. She said that she liked to drop
business when she came home in the evening; and at last she fell into
the habit of taking a nap on the library sofa, while Tom, who could not
use his eyes much by lamp-light, sat smoking or in utter idleness before
the fire. When they were first married his wife had made it a rule that
she should always read him the evening papers, and afterward they had
always gone on with some book of history or philosophy, in which they
were both interested. These evenings of their early married life had
been charming to both of them, and from time to time one would say to
the other that they ought to take up again the habit of reading
together. Mary was so unaffectedly tired in the evening that Tom never
liked to propose a walk; for, though he was not a man of peculiarly
social nature, he had always been accustomed to pay an occasional
evening visit to his neighbors in the village. And though he had little
interest in the business world, and still less knowledge of it, after a
while he wished that his wife would have more to say about what she was
planning and doing, or how things were getting on. He thought that her
chief aid, old Mr. Jackson, was far more in her thoughts than he. She
was forever quoting Jackson's opinio