will go to
sleep, and sleep anywhere and everywhere. No danger but Mammy gets sleep
enough. But this treating servants as if they were exotic flowers, or
china vases, is really ridiculous," said Marie, as she plunged languidly
into the depths of a voluminous and pillowy lounge, and drew towards her
an elegant cut-glass vinaigrette.

"You see," she continued, in a faint and lady-like voice, like the last
dying breath of an Arabian jessamine, or something equally ethereal,
"you see, Cousin Ophelia, I don't often speak of myself. It isn't my
_habit_; 't isn't agreeable to me. In fact, I haven't strength to do
it. But there are points where St. Clare and I differ. St. Clare never
understood me, never appreciated me. I think it lies at the root of all
my ill health. St. Clare means well, I am bound to believe; but men are
constitutionally selfish and inconsiderate to woman. That, at least, is
my impression."

Miss Ophelia, who had not a small share of the genuine New England
caution, and a very particular horror of being drawn into family
difficulties, now began to foresee something of this kind impending; so,
composing her face into a grim neutrality, and drawing out of her pocket
about a yard and a quarter of stocking, which she kept as a specific
against what Dr. Watts asserts to be a personal habit of Satan when
people have idle hands, she proceeded to knit most energetically,
shutting her lips together in a way that said, as plain as words could,
"You needn't try to make me speak. I don't want anything to do with your
affairs,"--in fact, she looked about as sympathizing as a stone lion.
But Marie didn't care for that. She had got somebody to talk to, and she
felt it her duty to talk, and that was enough; and reinforcing herself
by smelling again at her vinaigrette, she went on.

"You see, I brought my own property and servants into the connection,
when I married St. Clare, and I am legally entitled to manage them my
own way. St. Clare had his fortune and his servants, and I'm well
enough content he should manage them his way; but St. Clare will be
interfering. He has wild, extravagant notions about things, particularly
about the treatment of servants. He really does act as if he set his
servants before me, and before himself, too; for he lets them make him
all sorts of trouble, and never lifts a finger. Now, about some things,
St. Clare is really frightful--he frightens me--good-natured as he
looks, in general. Now,