Rome. He heard the well-known rustling of the well-known skirts, and shivered just a little at the sound. Three or four of the softest footsteps told distinctly on the silence; and then—he knew it, though he saw it not—Mrs. Jericho in her morning muslin, subsided upon the opposite chair like a summer wave.

[Pg 40]

Mr. Jericho, almost without knowing it, had shifted himself to the Tyrol, and was trying to wonder at the next move of the Emperor of Austria, when Mrs. Jericho slightly coughed. Upon this, Jericho, a little agitated, found himself among the list of bankrupts; then he took flight to the House of Commons; where he became intensely absorbed by the Sugar Question, in which he would have been happy to be busied all the morning, when the wife of his bosom observed,—

“Mr. Jericho”——

“My dear, just now it is impossible,” said Jericho, shifting.

“What is impossible, Mr. Jericho?” asked the lady, with cold wonder.

“Why, just now—I—I cannot let you have any money,” said Jericho; and he wiped his brow.

“Did I ask for money, Mr. Jericho?” inquired the wife, wounded by the imputation.

“Eh! Why—humph! Didn’t you?” cried Jericho, somewhat incredulous.

“Will you oblige me, Mr. Jericho, by looking at that?” and Mrs. Jericho handed in the Carraways’ letter.

“Oh! Ha!” cried Jericho—“An invitation to their grand party. Very kind of ’em. People who ought to be cultivated. Considering the money they have, they don’t hold their head quite high enough, to be sure; nevertheless, very good people; very rich people. We shall go, my dear, of course.”

[Pg 41]

[Pg 41]

Mrs. Jericho folded her hands together, dropt them gently into her lap, then turned her very placid face full in the face of her husband, and slowly, and very anxiously put to him these words—“And how are we to go, Mr. Jericho?”

“How, my dear!” cried Jericho, in the darkest ignorance—“How would you go?”

“As your family, Mr. Jericho; as your wife and daughters”—said the lady, “we ought to go drest.”

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