e disease, membranous croup,[Diphtheria D.W.]
was ravaging the town and driving all mothers mad with terror, I called
Mrs. McWilliams's attention to little Penelope, and said:

"Darling, I wouldn't let that child be chewing that pine stick if I were
you."

"Precious, where is the harm in it?" said she, but at the same time
preparing to take away the stick for women cannot receive even the most
palpably judicious suggestion without arguing it, that is married women.

I replied:

"Love, it is notorious that pine is the least nutritious wood that a
child can eat."

My wife's hand paused, in the act of taking the stick, and returned
itself to her lap. She bridled perceptibly, and said:

"Hubby, you know better than that. You know you do. Doctors all say
that the turpentine in pine wood is good for weak back and the kidneys."

"Ah--I was under a misapprehension. I did not know that the child's
kidneys and spine were affected, and that the family physician had
recommended--"

"Who said the child's spine and kidneys were affected?"

"My love, you intimated it."

"The idea! I never intimated anything of the kind."

"Why, my dear, it hasn't been two minutes since you said--"

"Bother what I said! I don't care what I did say. There isn't any harm
in the child's chewing a bit of pine stick if she wants to, and you know
it perfectly well. And she shall chew it, too. So there, now!"

"Say no more, my dear. I now see the force of your reasoning, and I will
go and order two or three cords of the best pine wood to-day. No child
of mine shall want while I--"

"Oh, please go along to your office and let me have some peace. A body
can never make the simplest remark but you must take it up and go to
arguing and arguing and arguing till you don't know what you are talking
about, and you never do."

"Very well, it shall be as you say. But there is a want of logic in your
last remark which--"

However, she was gone with a flourish before I could finish, and had
taken the child with her. That night at dinner she confronted me with a
face a white as a sheet:

"Oh, Mortimer, there's another! Little Georgi Gordon is taken."

"Membranous croup?"

"Membranous croup."

"Is there any hope for him?"

"None in the wide world. Oh, what is to be come of us!"

By and by a nurse brought in our Penelope to say good night and offer the
customary prayer at the mother's knee. In the midst of "Now I lay me
down to