re humorous persons, are men, you have to
give in a little here and take a good slice there. If you give up
to them there's an end to all peace and quietness. If you don't
give in enough the result is the same. What all men want is to make
their wives their slaves. You know, I suppose, how Gilly Cheel,
the younger, got his name of Jamaica?"

"I do not think I do."

"Why he and his Bessy are always quarrelling! Neither will yield
to the other. At last, by some means, Gilly got wind that in West
Indies, there are slaves, and he thought, if he could only get
out there with Bess that he'd be able to enslave her and make her
do what he wished. So he pretended that he'd got a little money
left him in Jamaica, and must needs go out there and settle. She
said she wouldn't go, and he had no call to go there, except just
for the sake of getting her under control. Then he talked big of
the beautiful climate, and all the cooking done by the sun, and no
washing needed, because clothing are unnecessary, and not only
no washing, but no mending neither, no stockings to knit, no buttons
to put on--a Paradise for wimen, said Gilly--but still he couldn't
get Bessy to hear of going out to the West Indies. At last, how it
was, I can't say, but she got wind of the institootion of slavery
there, and then she guessed at once what was working in Gilly's
mind. Since that day he's always gone by the name of Jamaica, and
fellows that want to tease him shout, 'Taken your passage yet for
you and Bessy to Jamaica?'"

"My dear mother," said Mehetabel, "I should not mind being a slave
in my husband's house, and to him, if there were love to beautify
and sanctify it. But it would not be slavery then, and now I am
afraid that you, mother, have perhaps took it unkind that I did not
tell you more about that shot. If so, let me make all good again
between us by telling you a real secret. There's no one else knows
it."

"What is that?" asked the hostess eagerly.

Mehetabel was nervous and colored.

"May I tell you in your ear?"

Mrs. Verstage extended an ear to her, she would have applied both
to Mehetabel's mouth had that been feasible.

The young wife, with diffidence, whispered something.

A beam of satisfaction lit up the old woman's face.

"That's famous. That's just as it ort. With that and with the
cookery book, Jonas'll just adore you. There's nuthin' like that
for makin' a home homely."

"And you'll come to me?"

"My dear, if alive