herself that there never was such a man; and then, beginning a little household song—familiar to families as winter robin—she thought she would go out. She wanted to make a little purchase. She had tried it before; there was nothing like shopping for lowness of spirits; and—yes, she remembered—she wanted[Pg 4] many things. She would go forth; and—as Jericho was in his airs—she would lay out money on both sides of the street.

[Pg 4]

And Mr. Jericho, as he shaved, quietly built up the scheme of a day’s pleasure for himself and three special friends. As his wife was in one of her aggravating tempers, he thought it an opportunity—sinful to let pass—to have a little quiet dinner somewhere: he could hardly decide upon the place; but a quiet banquet, at which the human heart would expand in good fellowship, and where the wine was far above a doubt.

Shopping and a dinner! Thus was the common purse to bleed in secret, and at both ends.

Mr. Jericho drest himself with unusual care. He was a man not without his whimsies; and believed that a good dinner was eaten with better enjoyment, when taken in full dress. “I hold it impossible”—he would say—“quite impossible, for a man to really relish turtle in gown and slippers. No; when turtle was created, it was intended to be eaten in state; eaten by men in robes and golden chains, to a flourish or so of silver trumpets.” Mrs. Jericho was fully aware of this marital superstition. Thus, when with an eye—a wife’s eye—at the bed-room door, she saw her husband slide down stairs as though the bannister was buttered, she knew from his dress that it was a day out; and when the disturbed air wafted back the scent of lavender from the linen of her lord, mingled with huile des roses from his locks,—it will not surprise the student of human nature, when we aver that the heart of the married woman almost sank within her.

Speedily recovering herself, Mrs. Jericho determined upon her best and brightest gown; her richest shawl; her most captivating bonnet. These things endued, she took her purse, and as the bank-paper crumpled in her resolute palm, catching a departing look at the glass, it was plain to herself that she smiled mischief.

Mrs. Jericho had the profoundest opinion of the powers of her husband: she believed him capable of any amount of money. Nevertheless, the man would reject the flattery sometimes with argument, sometimes with indignation. Again and again the husband assured his wife, he must—and no help for it—die a beggar; but the woman armed her 

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