opposed to yours?  Employing an agent! it is like a Trojan seeking the aid of a Greek.  You needn’t cry, Mrs. Staines; your husband has been let in deeper than you have.  Now, you are young people beginning life; I’ll give you a piece of advice.  Employ others to do what you can’t do, and it must be done; but never to do anything you can do better for yourselves!  Agent!  The word is derived from a Latin word ‘agere,’ to do; and agents act up to their etymology, for they invariably do the nincompoop that employs them, or deals with them, in any mortal way.  I’d have got you that beastly little Bijou for ninety pounds a year.”

Uncle Philip went away crusty, leaving the young couple finely mortified and discouraged.

That did not last very long.  Christopher noted the experience and Uncle Phil’s wisdom in his diary, and then took his wife on his knee, and comforted her, and said, “Never mind; experience is worth money, and it always has to be bought.  Those who cheat us will die poorer than we shall, if we are honest and economical.  I have observed that people are seldom ruined by the vices of others; these may hurt them, of course; but it is only their own faults and follies that can destroy them.”

“Ah!  Christie,” said Rosa, “you are a man!  Oh, the comfort of being married to A man.  A man sees the best side.  I do adore men.  Dearest, I will waste no more of your money.  I will go to no more sales.”

Christopher saw she was deeply mortified, and he said, quietly, “On the contrary, you will go to the very next.  Only take Uncle Philip’s advice, employ no broker; and watch the prices things fetch when you are not bidding; and keep cool.”

She caressed his ears with both her white hands, and thanked him for giving her another trial.  So that trouble melted in the sunshine of conjugal love.

Notwithstanding the agent’s solemn assurance, the Bijou was out of repair.  Dr. Staines detected internal odors, as well as those that flowed in from the mews.  He was not the man to let his wife perish by miasma; so he had the drains all up, and actually found brick drains, and a cesspool.  He stopped that up, and laid down new pipe drains, with a good fall, and properly trapped.  The old drains were hidden, after the manner of builders.  He had the whole course of his new drains marked upon all the floors they passed under, and had several stones and boards hinged to facilitate examination at any period.

But all this, with the necessary cleaning, whitewashing, painting, and papering, ran away with money.  Then came Rosa’s purchases, which, to her amazement, amounted to one hundred and ninety pounds, and not a carpet, curtain, or bed amongst the lot.  Then there was the carriage home from the auction-room, an expense one avoids by buying at a shop, and the broker claimed his shilling in the pound.  This, however, Staines refused.  The man came and blustered.  Rosa, who was there, trembled.  Then, for the