Then, with true wifely instinct she sought to cheer him up with pleasing prattle of a new bonnet he had promised her.  “Ah! darling,” he sighed, absently picking up the fire-poker and turning it in his hands, “let us change the subject.”

Then his soul’s idol chirped an inspiring ballad, kissed him on the top of his head, and sweetly mentioned that the dressmaker had sent in her bill.  “Let us talk only of love,” returned he, thoughtfully rolling up his dexter sleeve.

And so she spoke of the vine-enfolded cottage in which she fondly hoped they might soon sip together the conjugal sweets.  William became rigidly erect, a look not of earth was in his face, his breast heaved, and the fire-poker quivered with emotion.  William felt deeply.  “Mine own,” said the good woman, now busily irrigating a mass of snowy dough for the evening meal, “do you know that there is not a bite of meat in the house?”

It is a cold, unlovely truth-a sad, heart-sickening fact-but it must be told by the conscientious novelist.  William repaid all this affectionate solicitude-all this womanly devotion, all this trust, confidence, and abnegation in a manner that needs not be particularly specified.

A short, sharp curve in the middle of that iron fire-poker is eloquent of a wrong redressed.  Little Isaac.

Mr. Gobwottle came home from a meeting of the Temperance Legion extremely drunk.  He went to the bed, piled himself loosely atop of it and forgot his identity.  About the middle of the night, his wife, who was sitting up darning stockings, heard a voice from the profoundest depths of the bolster:  “Say, Jane?”

Jane gave a vicious stab with the needle, impaling one of her fingers, and continued her work.  There was a long silence, faintly punctuated by the bark of a distant dog.  Again that voice—­“Say-Jane!”

The lady laid aside her work and wearily, replied:  “Isaac, do go to sleep; they are off.”

Another and longer pause, during which the ticking of the clock became painful in the intensity of the silence it seemed to be measuring.  “Jane, what’s off!” “Why, your boots, to be sure,” replied the petulant woman, losing patience; “I pulled them off when you first lay down.”

Again the prostrate gentleman was still.  Then when the candle of the waking housewife had burned low down to the socket, and the wasted flame on the hearth was expiring bluely in convulsive leaps, the head of the family resumed:  “Jane, who said anything about boots?”

There was no reply.  Apparently none was expected, for the man immediately rose, lengthened himself out like a telescope, and continued:  “Jane, I must have smothered that brat, and I’m ’fernal sorry!”

“What brat?” asked the wife, becoming interested.

“Why, ours-our little Isaac.  I saw you put ’im in bed last week, and I’ve been layin’ right onto ’im!”

“What under the sun do you mean?” asked the good wife; “we haven’t any brat, and never had, and his name should not be Isaac if we had.  I believe you are crazy.”