d
the bright eyes of the young wife were not long in discovering that she
was watched and dogged! What did the outraged wife? Send the vixen
packing, bag and baggage, with a boxed ear for a parting present, as she
might have done with all propriety? Not at all--she retained her and
kept her own discovery a secret, merely adopting the same plan as our
friend the trainer, and giving her _something to tell_. The wife
fortunately had half a dozen male cousins, living at a distance, and as
many female friends, living near. Between these two corps of assistants
she managed to receive such letters, accidentally dropped for the
servant-girl to finger, and received such clandestine visits when her
husband was absent and at suspicious hours, as left no doubt whatever in
the mind of a _reasonable_ man like the husband, that she must be
terribly false to her marital vows. The catastrophe of all this need not
be given: it was final enough, in all conscience, and sent the husband
down town one day with a dim consciousness that he had made himself the
greatest fool since Adam, and that an early burial would not be so great
a calamity after all!

Unfortunately Judge Owen, of this writing, had no such sharp-witted and
reckless opponent, and his meanness was left to work itself out in a
natural manner. Aunt Martha's apprehensions were not idle, as was proved
very soon after. The Judge and his wife returned from their little trip
up the Hudson, on the second day after their departure; and within three
hours after their arrival, before the Judge had been absent from the
house a moment and before Colonel Boadley Bancker could by any means
have managed to see him, the storm of paternal wrath and indignation
burst on the devoted heads for which it was intended.

The gas had just been lighted on the floor below, and Aunt Martha and
Emily were seated enjoying the summer twilight in the front-room of the
latter, up-stairs, when the stentorian voice of the Judge was heard
bawling from the hall:

"Martha--Emily--come down here a moment!"

"There it is! there is trouble ahead! I knew it!" said Aunt Martha.

"He _cannot_ have heard anything about it, yet," said the niece.

"He _has_, I am sure of it!" answered the Aunt. "We may as well go down
and take the thunder-storm, at once, as have it hanging over us for a
month."

"Oh, Aunt, I cannot endure to have Papa scold, when he is in one of his
terrible humors," said the frightened girl. "I hav