-and am I not even to ask a question about her? Am I to be
prevaricated with by a servant? I won't be prevaricated with! Not very
cheerful? What do you mean by not very cheerful?"

"I only meant that my mistress was not in good spirits, sir."

"Why couldn't you say it, then? Don't you know the value of words? The
most dreadful consequences sometimes happen from not knowing the value
of words. Did your mistress tell you she was going to London?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did you think when your mistress told you she was going to London?
Did you think it odd she was going without me?"

"I did not presume to think it odd, sir.--Is there anything more I can
do for you, if you please, sir?"

"What sort of a morning is it out? Is it warm? Is the sun on the
garden?"

"Yes, sir."

"Have you seen the sun yourself on the garden?"

"Yes, sir."

"Get me my great-coat; I'll take a little turn. Has the man brushed it?
Did you see the man brush it yourself? What do you mean by saying he
has brushed it, when you didn't see him? Let me look at the tails. If
there's a speck of dust on the tails, I'll turn the man off!--Help me on
with it."

Louisa helped him on with his coat, and gave him his hat. He went out
irritably. The coat was a large one (it had belonged to his father); the
hat was a large one (it was a misfit purchased as a bargain by himself).
He was submerged in his hat and coat; he looked singularly small,
and frail, and miserable, as he slowly wended his way, in the wintry
sunlight, down the garden walk. The path sloped gently from the back of
the house to the water side, from which it was parted by a low wooden
fence. After pacing backward and forward slowly for some little time,
he stopped at the lower extremity of the garden, and, leaning on the fen
ce, looked down listlessly at the smooth flow of the river.

His thoughts still ran on the subject of his first fretful question to
Louisa--he was still brooding over the circumstances under which
his wife had left the cottage that morning, and over the want of
consideration toward himself implied in the manner of her departure. The
longer he thought of his grievance, the more acutely he resented it. He
was capable of great tenderness of feeling where any injury to his sense
of his own importance was concerned. His head drooped little by little
on his arms, as they rested on the fence, and, in the deep sincerity of
his mortification, he sighed bitterly.

The sigh was