ince you say so, and I shall be smarter than
anyone in the whole village. "What a splendid coat!" they will exclaim
when they see me. But it is not everybody who has a wife as clever as
mine.'

Meanwhile the other wife was not idle. As soon as her husband entered
she looked at him with such a look of terror that the poor man was quite
frightened.

'Why do you stare at me so? Is there anything the matter?' asked he.

'Oh! go to bed at once,' she cried; 'you must be very ill indeed to look
like that!'

The man was rather surprised at first, as he felt particularly well that
evening; but the moment his wife spoke he became quite certain that he
had something dreadful the matter with him, and grew quite pale.

'I dare say it would be the best place for me,' he answered, trembling;
and he suffered his wife to take him upstairs, and to help him off with
his clothes.

'If you sleep well during the might there MAY be a chance for you,' said
she, shaking her head, as she tucked him up warmly; 'but if not--' And
of course the poor man never closed an eye till the sun rose.

'How do you feel this morning?' asked the woman, coming in on tip-toe
when her house-work was finished.

'Oh, bad; very bad indeed,' answered he; 'I have not slept for a moment.
Can you think of nothing to make me better?'

'I will try everything that is possible,' said the wife, who did not in
the least wish her husband to die, but was determined to show that he
was more foolish that the other man. 'I will get some dried herbs and
make you a drink, but I am very much afraid that it is too late. Why did
you not tell me before?'

'I thought perhaps the pain would go off in a day or two; and, besides,
I did not want to make you unhappy,' answered the man, who was by this
time quite sure he had been suffering tortures, and had borne them like
a hero. 'Of course, if I had had any idea how ill I really was, I should
have spoken at once.'

'Well, well, I will see what can be done,' said the wife, 'but talking
is not good for you. Lie still, and keep yourself warm.'

All that day the man lay in bed, and whenever his wife entered the room
and asked him, with a shake of the head, how he felt, he always replied
that he was getting worse. At last, in the evening, she burst into
tears, and when he inquired what was the matter, she sobbed out:

'Oh, my poor, poor husband, are you really dead? I must go to-morrow and
order your coffin.'

Now, when the man