rything
in silence; it's a wife's hard lot, and I bear it. But I did break out,
that time; so that he has never alluded to the subject since. But I know
by his looks, and little things that he says, that he thinks so as much
as ever; and it's so trying, so provoking!"

Miss Ophelia looked very much as if she was afraid she should say
something; but she rattled away with her needles in a way that had
volumes of meaning in it, if Marie could only have understood it.

"So, you just see," she continued, "what you've got to manage. A
household without any rule; where servants have it all their own way, do
what they please, and have what they please, except so far as I, with
my feeble health, have kept up government. I keep my cowhide about, and
sometimes I do lay it on; but the exertion is always too much for me. If
St. Clare would only have this thing done as others do--"

"And how's that?"

"Why, send them to the calaboose, or some of the other places to be
flogged. That's the only way. If I wasn't such a poor, feeble piece, I
believe I should manage with twice the energy that St. Clare does."

"And how does St. Clare contrive to manage?" said Miss Ophelia. "You say
he never strikes a blow."

"Well, men have a more commanding way, you know; it is easier for
them; besides, if you ever looked full in his eye, it's peculiar,--that
eye,--and if he speaks decidedly, there's a kind of flash. I'm afraid of
it, myself; and the servants know they must mind. I couldn't do as much
by a regular storm and scolding as St. Clare can by one turn of his eye,
if once he is in earnest. O, there's no trouble about St. Clare; that's
the reason he's no more feeling for me. But you'll find, when you come
to manage, that there's no getting along without severity,--they are so
bad, so deceitful, so lazy".

"The old tune," said St. Clare, sauntering in. "What an awful account
these wicked creatures will have to settle, at last, especially for
being lazy! You see, cousin," said he, as he stretched himself at full
length on a lounge opposite to Marie, "it's wholly inexcusable in them,
in the light of the example that Marie and I set them,--this laziness."

"Come, now, St. Clare, you are too bad!" said Marie.

"Am I, now? Why, I thought I was talking good, quite remarkably for me.
I try to enforce your remarks, Marie, always."

"You know you meant no such thing, St. Clare," said Marie.

"O, I must have been mistaken, then. Thank you, my de