“The cistern’s out, hey?  Well, what if it is?  Are we to have this kicking and squalling till the cistern’s full again, hey?”

“Why what possesses you?”

“Couldn’t see the connection, that’s all.  I ask for a horsepond or a ditch, and you tell me the cistern’s out.  If it were full, there might be some hope for me,” looking savagely at the baby, “I suppose it’s deep enough.”

“For shame!—­do hush, baby, will ye?  Tuddy, tuddy, how he bawls!”

“Couldn’t you tighten the cap-strings a little, my dear?”

“Monster! get away, will you?’

“Or cram your handkerchief down his throat, or your knitting-work, or the lamp-rug?”

“Ah, well thought of, my dear.  Have you seen Mr. Smith?”

“What Smith?”

“George, I believe.  The man you buy your oil of, and your groceries.—­Hush, baby!  He’s been here two or three times after you this week.”

“Hang Mr. Smith!”

“With all my heart, my love.  But, if the quarter’s rent is not paid, you know, and the grocer’s bill, and the baker’s, and the butcher’s, and if you don’t manage to get the bottling-house fixed up, and some other little matters attended to, I don’t exactly see how the hanging of poor Mr. Smith would help us.”

“Oh hush, will you?”

The young wife turned and kissed the baby, with her large indolent eyes fixed upon the door somewhat nervously.  She had touched the bell more than once without being seen by her husband.

“Wisdom and wit,” continued papa, with a voice like that of a man who has overslept himself and hopes to make up for lost time by walking very fast, and talking very little to the purpose—­“Wisdom and wit are bubbles”—­

The young wife nodded with a sort of a smile, and the baby, rolling over in her lap, let fly both heels? at the nurse, who had crept in slyly, as if intent to lug him off to bed without his knowledge.  But he was not in a humor to be trifled with; and so he flopped over on the other side, and, tumbling head over heels upon the floor, very much at large, lay there kicking and screaming till he grew black in the face.  But the girl persisted, nevertheless, in lifting him up and lugging him off to the door, notwithstanding his outcries and the expostulatory looks of both papa and mamma—­her wages were evidently in arrears, a whole quarter, perhaps.

“Wisdom and wit are bubbles,” continued papa; “dominion and power, and beauty and strength”—­

“And gingerbread and cheese,” added mamma, in reply to something said by the girl in a sort of stage-whisper.

Whereupon papa, stopping short, and looking at mamma for a few moments, puzzled and well nigh speechless, gasped out—­

“And gingerbread and cheese! Why, what the plague do you mean, Sarah?”

“Nothing else for tea, my love, so Bridget says.  Not a pound o’ flour in the house; not so much as a loaf, nor a roll, nor a muffin to be had for love or money—­so Bridget says.”