Rachel looked hurt and rebuked, but made no reply.

“How could you speak in that way to Rachel?” said Mr. Smith, as soon as the domestic had withdrawn.

“If you felt just as I do, Mr. Smith, you would speak cross, too!” Mrs. Smith replied a little warmly—­“I feel just like a rag; and my head aches as if it would burst.”

“I know you feel badly, and I am very sorry for you.  But still, I suppose it is as easy to speak kindly as harshly.  Rachel is very obliging and attentive, and should be borne with in occasional omissions, which you of course know are not wilful.”

“It is easy enough to preach,” retorted Mrs. Smith, whose temper, from bodily lassitude and pain, was in quite an irritable state.  The reader will understand at least one of the reasons of this, when he is told that the scene here presented occurred during the last oppressive week in August.

Mr. Smith said no more.  He saw that to do so would only be to provoke instead of quieting his wife’s ill humor.  The morning meal went by in silence, but little food passing the lips of either.  How could it, when the thermometer was ninety-four at eight o’clock in the morning, and the leaves upon the trees were as motionless as if suspended in a vacuum.  Bodies and minds were relaxed—­and the one turned from food, as the other did from thought, with an instinctive aversion.

After Mr. Smith had left his home for his place of business, Mrs. Smith went up into her chamber, and threw herself upon the bed, her head still continuing to ache with great violence.  It so happened that a week before, the chambermaid had gone away, sick, and all the duties of the household had in consequence devolved upon Rachel, herself not very well.  Cheerfully, however, had she endeavored to discharge these accumulated duties, and but for the unhappy, peevish state of mind in which Mrs. Smith indulged, would have discharged them without a murmuring thought.  But, as she was a faithful, conscientious woman, and, withal, sensitive in her feelings, to be found fault with, worried her exceedingly.  Of this Mrs. Smith was well aware, and had, until the latter part of the trying month of August, acted towards Rachel with consideration and forbearance.  But the last week of August was too much for her.  The sickness of the chamber maid threw such heavy duties upon Rachel, whose daily headaches and nervous relaxation of body were borne without a complaint, that their perfect performance was almost impossible.  Slight omissions, which were next to unavoidable, under the circumstances, became so annoying to Mrs. Smith, herself, as it has been seen, laboring under great bodily and mental prostration that she could not bear them.

“She knows better, and she could do better, if she chose,” was her rather uncharitable comment, often inwardly made on the occurrence of some new trouble.

After Mr. Smith had taken his departure on the morning just referred to, Mrs. Smith went up into her chamber, as has been seen, and threw herself languidly upon a bed, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples, as she did so, and murmuring: