“Why, Jane!  Jane!  This is not kind in you,” said my husband, with regret and displeasure in his voice.  “It is rather hard if a man can’t ask an old friend home to dine with him once in five years, without asking the special permission of his wife.”

“Mr. Smith!  Are you not aware that this is washing day?”

There was an instant change in my husband’s countenance.  He seemed bewildered for a few moments.

“And, moreover,” I continued, “are you not aware that I was to have a picked-up dinner at home, and that you were to dine at an eating house?”

“I declare!” Mr. Smith struck his hands together, and turned around once upon his heel.—­“I entirely forgot about that.”

“What’s to be done?” said I, almost crying with vexation.  “I’ve nothing for dinner but fried ham and eggs.”

“The best we can do is the best,” returned Mr. Smith.  “You can give Mr. Jones a hearty welcome, and that will compensate for any defects in the dinner.  I forewarned him that we should not entertain him very sumptuously.”

“You’d better tell him the whole truth at once,” said I, in answer to this; “and then take him to an eating house.”

But my good husband would hear to nothing of this.  He had invited his old friend to dine with him; and dine he must, if it was only on a piece of dry bread.

“Pick up something.  Do the best you can,” he returned.  “We can wait for half an hour.”

“I’ve nothing in the house, I tell you,” was my answer made in no very pleasant tones; for I felt very much irritated and outraged by my husband’s thoughtless conduct.

“There, there, Jane.  Don’t get excited about the matter,” said he soothingly.  But his words were not like oil to the troubled waters of my spirit.

“I am excited,” was my response.  “How can I help being so?  It is too much!  You should have had more consideration.”

But, talking was of no use.  Mr. Jones was in the parlor, and had come to take a family dinner with us.  So, nothing was left but to put a good face on the matter; or, at least, to try and do so.

“Dinner’s on the table now,” said I.  “All is there that we can have to-day.  So just invite your friend to the dining room, where you will find me.”

So saying, I took a little fellow by the hand, who always eat with us, and led him away, feeling, as my lady readers will very naturally suppose, in not the most amiable humor in the world.  I had just got the child, who was pretty hungry, seated in his high chair, when my husband and his guest made their appearance; and I was introduced.

Sorry am I to chronicle the fact—­but truth compels me to make a faithful record—­that my reception of the stranger was by no means gracious.  I tried to smile; but a smile was such a mockery of my real feelings, that every facial muscle refused to play the hypocrite.  The man was not welcome, and it was impossible for me to conceal this.