n she
would tell Jip to lie down on the table instantly, 'like a lion'--which
was one of his tricks, though I cannot say the likeness was
striking--and, if he were in an obedient humour, he would obey. Then she
would take up a pen, and begin to write, and find a hair in it. Then
she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and find that it
spluttered. Then she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and
say in a low voice, 'Oh, it's a talking pen, and will disturb Doady!'
And then she would give it up as a bad job, and put the account-book
away, after pretending to crush the lion with it.

Or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she would
sit down with the tablets, and a little basket of bills and other
documents, which looked more like curl-papers than anything else, and
endeavour to get some result out of them. After severely comparing one
with another, and making entries on the tablets, and blotting them
out, and counting all the fingers of her left hand over and over again,
backwards and forwards, she would be so vexed and discouraged, and
would look so unhappy, that it gave me pain to see her bright face
clouded--and for me!--and I would go softly to her, and say:

'What's the matter, Dora?'

Dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, 'They won't come right. They
make my head ache so. And they won't do anything I want!'

Then I would say, 'Now let us try together. Let me show you, Dora.'

Then I would commence a practical demonstration, to which Dora would pay
profound attention, perhaps for five minutes; when she would begin to be
dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject by curling my hair,
or trying the effect of my face with my shirt-collar turned down. If
I tacitly checked this playfulness, and persisted, she would look so
scared and disconsolate, as she became more and more bewildered, that
the remembrance of her natural gaiety when I first strayed into her
path, and of her being my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me;
and I would lay the pencil down, and call for the guitar.

I had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the same
considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from sure, now,
that it was right to do this, but I did it for my child-wife's sake. I
search my breast, and I commit its secrets, if I know them, without any
reservation to this paper. The old unhappy loss or want of something
had, I am conscious, some place in