“Oh!” said Mr. Dudley with his usual air of deep gravity; “it is not she, but her husband who is on my mind.  I have hated the fellow all his life.  About twice a year I have treacherously stabbed him in the back as he was going out of my own front door.  I knew that he would interfere with my comfort if I let him get a footing.  After all he was always a poor creature, and did not deserve to live.  My conscience does not reproach me.  But now, when I am weak, and his ghost rises in an irrepressible manner, and grins at me on my own threshold, I begin to feel a sort of pity, mingled with contempt.  I want to show charity to him before I die.”

“What on earth do you mean?” asked his sister-in-law with an impatient groan.  “For thirty years I have been trying to understand you, and you grow worse every year.”

“Now, I am not surprised to hear you say so.  Any sympathy for the husband is unusual, no doubt, yet I am not prepared to admit that it is unintelligible.  You go too far.”

“Take your own way, William.  When you are tired, let me know what it is that you think I can do.”

“I want you to find the poor fellow, and tell him that I bear him no real ill-will.”

“You want me to find a husband for Esther?”

“If you have nothing better to do.  I have looked rather carefully through her list of friends, and, taking out the dancing men who don’t count, I see nobody who would answer, except perhaps her Cousin George, and to marry him would be cold-blooded.  She might as well marry you.”

“I have thought a great deal about that match, as you know,” replied Mrs. Murray.  “It would not answer.  I could get over the cousinship, if I must, but Esther will want a husband to herself and George is a vagabond.  He could never make her happy.”

“George had the ill-luck,” said Mr. Dudley, “to inherit a small spark of something almost like genius; and a little weak genius mixed in with a little fortune, goes a long way towards making a jack-o-lantern.  Still we won’t exaggerate George’s genius.  After all there is not enough of it to prevent his being the best of the lot.”

“He could not hold her a week,” said Mrs. Murray; “nor she him.”

“I own that on his wedding day he would probably be in Dakota flirting with the bones of a fossil monkey,” said Mr. Dudley thoughtfully; “but what better can you suggest?”

“I suggest that you should leave it alone, and let Esther take care of her own husband,” replied Mrs. Murray.  “Women must take their chance.  It is what they are for.  Marriage makes no real difference in their lot.  All the contented women are fools, and all the discontented ones want to be men.  Women are a blunder in the creation, and must take the consequences.  If Esther is sensible she will never marry; but no woman is sensible, so she will marry without consulting us.”

“You are always eloquent on this subject,” said Mr. Dudley.  “Why have you never applied for a divorce from poor Murray?”