nother difficulty in the way. What excuse for
parting with it could I make to Mr. Smith? He had never suspected
that article to be the origination of all the mischief and loss we
had sustained.

Winter began drawing to a close, and still the sofa remained in its
place, and still was I in perplexity as to what should be done with
it.

"Business requires me to go to Charleston," said Mr. Smith, one day
late in February.

"How long will you be away?" was my natural enquiry.

"From ten days to two weeks," replied Mr. Smith.

"So long as that?"

"It will hardly be possible to get home earlier than the time I have
mentioned."

"You go in the Osprey?"

"Yes. She sails day after to-morrow. So you will have all ready for
me, if you please."

Never before had the announcement of my husband that he had to go
away on business given me pleasure. The moment he said that he would
be absent, the remedy for my difficulty suggested itself.

The very day Mr. Smith sailed in the steamer for Charleston, I sent
for an upholsterer, and after explaining to him the defect connected
with my sofa, directed him to have the seating all removed, and then
replaced by new materials, taking particular care to thoroughly
cleanse the inside of the wood work, lest the vestige of a moth
should be left remaining.

All this was done, at a cost of twenty dollars. When Mr. Smith
returned, the sofa was back in its place; and he was none the wiser
for the change, until some months afterwards, when, unable to keep
the secret any longer, I told him the whole story.

I am pretty well cured, I think now, of bargain-buying.

CHAPTER XXII.

A PEEVISH DAY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

THERE are few housekeepers who have not had their sick and peevish
days. I have had mine, as the reader will see by the following
story, which I some time since ventured to relate, in the third
person, and which I now take the liberty of introducing into these
confessions.

"It is too bad, Rachel, to put me to all this trouble; and you know
I can hardly hold up my head."

Thus spoke Mrs. Smith, in a peevish voice, to a quiet looking
domestic, who had been called up from the kitchen to supply some
unimportant omission in the breakfast table arrangement.

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as the domestic had withdrawn.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 cr