Mrs. Staines is an admiring, sympathizing wife, and an admirable housekeeper.  She still utters inadvertencies now and then, commits new errors at odd times, but never repeats them when exposed.  Observing which docility, Uncle Philip has been heard to express a fear that, in twenty years, she will be the wisest woman in England.  “But, thank heaven!” he adds, “I shall be gone before that.”

Her conduct and conversation afford this cynic constant food for observation; and he has delivered himself oracularly at various stages of the study:  but I cannot say that his observations, taken as a whole, present that consistency which entitles them to be regarded as a body of philosophy.  Examples:  In the second month after Mrs. Staines came to live with him, he delivered himself thus:  “My niece Rosa is an anomaly.  She gives you the impression she is shallow.  Mind your eye:  in one moment she will take you out of your depth or any man’s depth.  She is like those country streams I used to fish for pike when I was young; you go along, seeing the bottom everywhere; but presently you come to a corner, and it is fifteen deep all in a moment, and souse you go over head and ears:  that’s my niece Rosa.”

In six months he had got to this—­and, mind you, each successive dogma was delivered in a loud, aggressive tone, and in sublime oblivion of the preceding oracle—­“My niece Rosa is the most artful woman. (You may haw! haw! haw! as much as you like.  You have not found out her little game—­I have.) What is the aim of all women?  To be beloved by an unconscionable number of people.  Well, she sets up for a simpleton, and so disarms all the brilliant people, and they love her.  Everybody loves her.  Just you put her down in a room with six clever women, and you will see who is the favorite.  She looks as shallow as a pond, and she is as deep as the ocean.”

At the end of the year he threw off the mask altogether.  “The great sweetener of a man’s life,” said he, “is ‘a simpleton.’  I shall not go abroad any more; my house has become attractive:  I’ve got a simpleton.  When I have a headache, her eyes fill with tender concern, and she hovers about me and pesters me with pillows:  when I am cross with her, she is afraid I am ill.  When I die, and leave her a lot of money, she will howl for months, and say I don’t want his money:  ’I waw-waw-waw-waw-want my Uncle Philip, to love me, and scold me.’  One day she told me, with a sigh, I hadn’t lectured her for a month.  ’I am afraid I have offended you,’ says she, ‘or else worn you out, dear.’  When I am well, give me a simpleton, to make me laugh.  When I am ill, give me a simpleton to soothe me with her innocent tenderness.  A simpleton shall wipe the dews of death, and close my eyes:  and when I cross the river of death, let me be met by a band of the heavenly host, who were all simpletons here on earth, and too good for such a hole, so now they are in heaven, and their garments always white—­because there are no laundresses there.”