yes, and better,
without your continual interference, dear? Your blunders only complicate
them, and disturb the harmony."

Now that is a nice way for the wife of one's bosom to talk, isn't it?
How often, O how often, would I remove the clouds of care from her
placid brow, and smooth her path through life by graceful persiflage and
appropriate witticisms: but she does not seem to appreciate them. I fear
she must have had some Scottish ancestors. Sometimes I think she does
not appreciate _me_. It is a cold world; a cold, heartless, unfeeling,
unresponsive world, in which the sensitive spirit may fly around
promiscuously like Noah's dove, and have to stay out in a low
temperature. Wisely and beneficently is it arranged that Virtue should
be her own reward, since she gets no other. I will try Jane next.

"My dear sister, you know I go to town to-night, and expect to bring
Hartman back. You will receive him kindly, for my sake, will you not?"

Jane is a little prim at times, and I have to arrange my sentences
carefully, when I am with her.

"I will do that, of course: why so many words about it? Have you not
been preparing me, and all of us, for this visit, for the last month? We
know what is right, Robert: _your_ behavior is the only doubtful part."

"But Clarice, sister? She is always so doubtful, as Mabel says; so
capricious, so haughty, so unapproachable. You have great influence with
her. Dear Jane, can you not persuade her to treat my poor friend
kindly?"

"Now, brother, why will you be such an unconscionable humbug? We all
know that you are in her confidence, when any one is. What were you two
talking about all last evening? Hatching some plot, no doubt. But it was
not intended to be practiced on me--not on her part; that is your
unauthorized addition to her text." And the maiden assumed the part of
Pallas, and gazed at me with severity, as if she would read my inmost
soul. But she can't beat Clarice at that. See here, young lady, you are
too sharp; you are getting dangerously near the truth. I came near
saying this out, but did not. Instead I took an injured tone.

"You are a pretty sister, Jane, to go about suspecting me this way, and
accusing me of intrigue and hypocrisy, and all kinds of black-hearted
wickedness. What would I want to deceive you for? You know we all have
to consider Clarice, and humor her: she is an orphan, and we are her
nearest friends. She amuses herself with me sometimes, for want of
a