s wife.

"So long as I don't make eyes at her there's no harm done," retorted Mr.
Jobling. "I can't help her taking a fancy to me, poor thing."

"I'd poor thing her," said his wife.

"She's to be pitied," said Mr. Jobling, sternly. "I know how she feels.
She can't help herself, but she'll get oyer it in time. I don't suppose
she thinks for a moment we have noticed her--her--her liking for me, and
I'm not going to have her feelings hurt."

"What about my feelings?" demanded his wife.

"_You_ have got me," Mr. Jobling reminded her.

The nine points of the law was Mrs. Jobling's only consolation for the
next few days. Neighboring matrons, exchanging sympathy for information,
wished, strangely enough, that Mr. Jobling was their husband. Failing
that they offered Mrs. Jobling her choice of at least a hundred plans
for bringing him to his senses.

[Illustration: Choice of at least a hundred plans 272]

Mr. Jobling, who was a proud man, met their hostile glances as he passed
to and from his work with scorn, until a day came when the hostility
vanished and gave place to smiles. Never so many people in the street,
he thought, as he returned from work; certainly never so many smiles.
People came hurriedly from their back premises to smile at him, and, as
he reached his door, Mr. Joe Brown opposite had all the appearance of a
human sunbeam. Tired of smiling faces, he yearned for that of his wife.
She came out of the kitchen and met him with a look of sly content. The
perplexed Mr. Jobling eyed her morosely.

"What are you laughing at me for?" he demanded.

"I wasn't laughing at you," said his wife.

She went back into the kitchen and sang blithely as she bustled over the
preparations for tea. Her voice was feeble, but there was a triumphant
effectiveness about the high notes which perplexed the listener sorely.
He seated himself in the new easy-chair--procured to satisfy the
supposed aesthetic tastes of Miss Robinson--and stared at the window.

"You seem very happy all of a sudden," he growled, as his wife came in
with the tray.

"Well, why shouldn't I be?" inquired Mrs. Jobling. "I've got everything
to make me so."

Mr. Jobling looked at her in undisguised amazement.

"New easy-chair, new vases, and a new hearth-rug," explained his wife,
looking round the room. "Did you order that little table you said you
would?"

"Yes," growled Mr. Jobling.

"Pay for it?" inquired his wife, with a trace of anxiety.

"Yes,