but was a sort of cracked treble whisper.  Moreover, when Mrs. Porkington wished to speak her mind to her husband, she would recline upon a sofa in an impressive manner, and fix her eyes upon the ceiling.  Mr. Porkington, on these occasions, would sit on the very edge of the most uncomfortable chair, his toes turned out, his hands embracing his knees, and his eyes tracing the patterns upon the carpet, as though with a view of studying some abstruse theory of curves.  On which side the victory lay under these circumstances it is easy to guess.

Mrs. Porkington felt the advantage of her position and followed it up.

“I never, my dear, mention any subject to you, but you immediately fling your parents at me.”

Mr. Porkington would as soon have thought of throwing St. Paul’s Cathedral.

After a honeymoon spent in the Lake district the happy pair went to pay a visit to the parents of the bridegroom, and Porkington had so brightened and revived during his stay there, and had expressed himself so happy in their society, that Mrs. Porkington could not forgive him.  In the company of his wife’s father, on the contrary, he relapsed into a state bordering upon coma; and no wonder, for that worthy retired tallow merchant was a perfect specimen of ponderous pomposity, and had absolutely nothing in common with the shy scholar who had become his son-in-law.  Mr. Candlish had lost the great part of the money he had made by tallow, and by consequence had nothing to give his daughter; but she behaved herself as a woman should whose father might at one time have given her ten thousand pounds.  “My papa, my dear, was worth at least 40,000 pounds when he retired,” was the form in which Mrs. Porkington flung her surviving parent at the head of her husband, and crushed him flat with the missile.  To the world at large she spoke of her father as “being at present a gentleman of moderate means.”  Now, as a gentleman of moderate means cannot be expected to provide for a sister of no means at all; and as Mrs. Porkington, not having been blessed with children by her marriage, required a companion, her aunt tacked herself on to Mr. Porkington’s establishment, and became a permanent and substantial fixture.  Fat, ugly, and spiteful when she dared, she became a thorn in the side of the poor tutor, and supported on all occasions the whims and squabbles of her niece.  Whenever the “coach” evinced any tendency to travel too fast, Mrs. Porkington put the “drag” on, and the vehicle stopped.

Mr. and Mrs. Porkington had now been married three years; and, as the long vacation was at hand, it became necessary to arrange their plans for a “Reading Party.”

“If I might be allowed to suggest,” said Mrs. Porkington, reclining on her sofa, with her eyes fixed upon the ceiling, “I think a continental reading party would be the most beneficial to the young men.  The air of the continent, I have always found (Mrs. Porkington had crossed the channel upon one occasion) is very invigorating; and, though I know you don’t speak French, my dear, yet you should avail yourself of every opportunity of acquiring it.”