rywinkle, with his legs and feet in hot
water, superintends the mulling of some wine which he is to drink at the
very moment he plunges into bed, while Mrs. Merrywinkle, in garments
whose nature is unknown to and unimagined by all but married men, takes
four small pills with a spasmodic look between each, and finally comes to
something hot and fragrant out of another little saucepan, which serves
as her composing-draught for the night.

There is another kind of couple who coddle themselves, and who do so at a
cheaper rate and on more spare diet, because they are niggardly and
parsimonious; for which reason they are kind enough to coddle their
visitors too. It is unnecessary to describe them, for our readers may
rest assured of the accuracy of these general principles:--that all
couples who coddle themselves are selfish and slothful,--that they charge
upon every wind that blows, every rain that falls, and every vapour that
hangs in the air, the evils which arise from their own imprudence or the
gloom which is engendered in their own tempers,--and that all men and
women, in couples or otherwise, who fall into exclusive habits of
self-indulgence, and forget their natural sympathy and close connexion
with everybody and everything in the world around them, not only neglect
the first duty of life, but, by a happy retributive justice, deprive
themselves of its truest and best enjoyment.

THE OLD COUPLE

They are grandfather and grandmother to a dozen grown people and have
great-grandchildren besides; their bodies are bent, their hair is grey,
their step tottering and infirm. Is this the lightsome pair whose
wedding was so merry, and have the young couple indeed grown old so soon!

It seems but yesterday--and yet what a host of cares and griefs are
crowded into the intervening time which, reckoned by them, lengthens out
into a century! How many new associations have wreathed themselves about
their hearts since then! The old time is gone, and a new time has come
for others--not for them. They are but the rusting link that feebly
joins the two, and is silently loosening its hold and dropping asunder.

It seems but yesterday--and yet three of their children have sunk into
the grave, and the tree that shades it has grown quite old. One was an
infant--they wept for him; the next a girl, a slight young thing too
delicate for earth--her loss was hard indeed to bear. The third, a man.
That was the worst of all, but eve