It is needless to say that the cobbler was at once given in charge to a policeman.  The next morning, in consideration of a handsome fee, he moved away.  I accomplished this out of regard to the feelings of Mrs. Lawk; but, I must confess, I never regretted anything more.

The commencement of married life (as many married men will bear me out) is even more consoling than the happiest days of courtship.  The smell of varnish on new furniture is as delightfully novel as the odor of the orange-blossoms; the brightness of the new carpets and the crispness of the new curtains both mark an era,—­even if the stove is obstinate about drawing or a man is called out of bed to put up the coffee-mill.  There was Malinda Jane’s night-robe hanging on one side of the bed, and there was my night-robe on the other.  My clothes were in the upper drawer of the bureau, hers were in the lower—­in such delightful and loving proximity that I own to feeling a new man; I gloried in having some one dependent on me:  in short, I was happy.

I will not deny that there was some trouble about servants (I think Malinda Jane had seven the first ten days).  True, the meals were not models of regularity; the chicken sometimes came on in too natural a state,—­blue and pulpy,—­and the beefsteak betrayed a volcanic appearance, as though reduced to lava by an irruption of gravy.  I remember one woman stole a keg of butter, and another went off with half a dozen silver spoons.  The former, Malinda Jane ascribed to the cat; the latter, to a defective memory; but, then, Malinda Jane never learned housekeeping (I don’t see why she should, poor dear!), and trifles like these failed to mar our household peace.

I would mention the conduct of Mrs. Mountchessington Lawk as being, for nearly a year, really saintly.  Even the rare intervals at which she visited were marked by a manner the reverse of familiar.  Almost every evening she would stand on the opposite side of the street, gazing wistfully at us as we sat in the window; but no persuasion induced her to pay a formal visit more than once a fortnight.

With this striking evidence of my wisdom before me, I grew worldly.  I think that during that short year I possessed a better opinion of myself and my capacity than ever before or since.

Worse than this, I grew pharisaical.  I ventured to pity my less fortunate neighbors, bound hand and foot to the slavery of mothers-in-law.  I attempted to joke them, and poke them severely in the ribs with my knuckles, when the magic name was mentioned.  So often did I congratulate myself on the shrewd stroke of genius displayed, that I fear even her respectability became sadly impaired in my mind, and depreciated to such an extent that I was gradually led to think of her irreverently as an “old gal.”

“Too much for you, old gal,” got to be an exclamation so wonderfully consoling that, it crept into my sleep, and in those halcyon days I often waked up by the side of Malinda Jane, muttering the words, “Too much for you, old gal.”  Waked up, I think I said.  Ah! would I had never waked up, particularly on the dismal clouds which for a season darkened my domestic sunshine!