Alice looked a little paler, her husband a little discontented. Each had a different way of reading her unpleasant speech.

“Don’t mind that old woman, darling, don’t let her bore you. I do believe she has some as odious faults as are to be found on earth.”

“I don’t know what she means by a warning,” said Alice.

“Nor I, darling, I am sure; perhaps she has had a winding-sheet on her candle, or a coffin flew out of the fire, or a death-watch ticked in the wainscot,” he answered.

“A warning, what could she mean?” repeated Alice, slowly, with an anxious gaze in his eyes.

“My darling, how can you? A stupid old woman!” said he a little impatiently,. “and thoroughly ill-conditioned. She’s in one of her tempers, just because we laughed,, and fancied it was at her; and there’s nothing she’d like better than to frighten you,, if she could. I’ll pack her off, if I find her playing any tricks.”

“Oh, the poor old thing, not for the world; she’ll make it up with me, you’ll find; I don’t blame her the least, if she thought that, and I’ll tell her we never thought of such a thing.”

“Don’t mind her, she’s not worth it’—we’ll just make out a list of the things that we want; I’m afraid we want a great deal more than we can get, for you have married a fellow, in all things but love, as poor as a church mouse.”

He laughed, and kissed her, and patted her smiling cheek.

“Yes, it will be such fun buying these things; such a funny little dinner service and breakfast things, and how far away is Naunton?” ’

“I’m not so sure we can get them at Naunton. Things come from London so easily now,” said he.

“Oh, but there is such a nice little shop, I remarked it in Naunton,” said she, eagerly.

“Oh, is there?” said he, “I forgot, I believe you drove through it.”

“I did,” she answered, “and the whole pleasure of getting them, would be buying them with you.”

“You kind little darling,” he said, with a faint smile, “so it would to me, I know, choosing them with you; but are you sure there is a place there?”

“Such a nice little shop, with a great red and blue jug, hanging over the door for a sign,” she insisted, cheerily, “and there is something pleasant, isn’t there, in the sort of queer rustic things one would meet in such an out-of-the-way place?”

“Yes, so there is, but, however, we’ll think about it, and, in fact, it doesn’t matter a farthing where we get them.”

Our friend Charles seemed put out a little, and his slight unaccountable embarrassment piqued her curiosity, and made her ever so little uncomfortable. She was still, however, a very young wife, and in awe of her husband. It was, therefore, rather timidly that she said,—

“And why, darling Ry, can’t we decide now, and go tomorrow, and choose our plates, and cups, and saucers? it would be such a pleasant little adventure to look forward to.”

“So it might, but we’ll have to make up our minds to have many days go by, and weeks too, here, with nothing pleasant to look forward to. You knew very well,” he continued, not so sharply, “when you married me, that I owed money, and was a poor miserable devil, and not my own master, and you really must allow me to decide what is to be done, when a trifle might any day ruin us into mischief. There now, your eyes are full of tears, how can you be so foolish?”

“But, indeed, Ry, I’m not,” she pleaded, smiling through them. “I was only sorry, I was afraid I had vexed you.”

“Vexed me! you darling; not the least, I am only teased to think I am obliged to deny you anything, much less to hesitate about gratifying so trifling a wish as this; but so it is, and such my hard fate; and though I seem to be vexed, it is not with you, you must not mistake, never darling, with you; but in proportion as I love you, the sort of embarrassment into which you have ventured with your poor Ry, grieves and even enrages him, and the thought, too, that so small a thing would set it all to rights. But we are not the only people, of course, there are others as badly off, and a great deal worse; there now, darling, you must not cry, you really mustn’t; you must never fancy for a moment when anything happens to vex me, that I could be such a brute as to be angry with you; what’s to become of me, if you ever suffer such a chimera to enter your pretty little head? I do assure you, darling, I’d rather blow my brains out, than inflict a single unhappy hour upon you; there now, won’t you k............