“Time enough, surely, for that,” I exclaimed, as soon as I had composed myself; for I was a little out of breath.  “They may, I think, rub along with Susan for another year or two, Mary is but seven years of age”—­

“Eight years, if you please.  She was eight years old last Thursday three weeks.”

“Eight years!  Then we must have been married nine; Bless me, how the time has flown:  it seems scarcely so many weeks!”

“Nonsense,” rejoined my wife with a sharpness of tone and a rigidity of facial muscle which, considering the handsome compliment I had just paid her, argued, I was afraid, a foregone conclusion.  “You always have recourse to some folly of that sort whenever I am desirous of entering into a serious consultation on family affairs.”

There was some truth in this, I confess.  The “consultations” which I found profitable were not serious ones with my wife upon domestic matters; leading, as they invariably did, to a diminution instead of an increase of the little balance at the banker’s.  If such a proposition could therefore be evaded or adjourned by even an extravagant compliment, I considered it well laid out.  But the expedient, I found, was one which did not improve by use.  For some time after marriage it answered remarkably well; but each succeeding year of wedded bliss marked its rapidly-declining efficacy.

“Well, well; go on.”

“I say it is absolutely necessary that a first-rate governess should be at once engaged.  Lady Maldon has been here to-day, and she”—­

“Oh, I thought it might be her new ladyship’s suggestion.  I wish the ‘fountain of honor’ was somewhat charier of its knights and ladies, and then perhaps”—­

“What, for mercy’s sake, are you running on about?” interrupted the lady with peremptory emphasis.  “Fountains of honor, forsooth!  One would suppose, to hear you talk in that wild, nonsensical way, that you were addressing a bench of judges sitting in banco, instead of a sensible person solicitous for her and your children’s welfare.”

“Bless the woman,” thought I; “what an exalted idea she appears to have of forensic eloquence!  Proceed, my love,” I continued; “there is a difference certainly; and I am all attention.”

“Lady Maldon knows a young lady—­a distant relative, in deed, of hers—­whom she is anxious to serve”—­

“At our expense.”

“How can you be so ungenerous?  Edith Willoughby is the orphan daughter of the late Reverend Mr. Willoughby, curate of Heavy Tree in Warwickshire, I believe; and was specially educated for a first-class governess and teacher.  She speaks French with the true Parisian accent, and her Italian, Lady Maldon assures me, is pure Tuscan”—­

“He-e-e-m!”

“She dances with grace and elegance; plays the harp and piano with skill and taste; is a thorough artiste in drawing and painting; and is, moreover, very handsome—­though beauty, I admit, is an attribute which in a governess might be very well dispensed with.”