ter breakfast, and did not return
until dinner time. At first old Stapleton plied very regularly, and
took all the fares; but about a fortnight after we had worked together,
he used to leave me to look after employment, and remain at the
public-house. The weather was now fine, and, after the severe frost, it
changed so rapidly that most of the trees were in leaf, and the
horse-chestnuts in full blossom. The wherry was in constant demand, and
every evening I handed from four to six shillings over to old Stapleton.
I was delighted with my life, and should have been perfectly happy if
it had not been for my quarrel with Mary still continuing, she as
resolutely refraining from making advances as I. How much may life be
embittered by dissension with those you live with, even when there is no
very warm attachment; the constant grating together worries and annoys,
and although you may despise the atoms, the aggregate becomes
insupportable. I had no pleasure in the house; and the evenings, which
formerly passed so agreeably, were now a source of vexation, from being
forced to sit in company with one with whom I was not on good terms.
Old Stapleton was seldom at home till late, and this made it still
worse. I was communing with myself one night, as I had my eyes fixed on
my book, whether I should make the first advances, when Mary, who had
been quietly at work, broke the silence by asking me what I was reading.
I replied in a quiet tone.

"Jacob," said she, in continuation, "I think you have used me very ill
to humble me in this manner. It was your business to make it up first."

"I am not aware that I have been in the wrong," replied I.

"I do not say that you have; but what matter does that make? You ought
to give way to a woman."

"Why so?"

"Why so! don't the whole world do so? Do you not offer everything first
to a woman? Is it not her right?"

"Not when she is in the wrong, Mary."

"Yes, when she's in the wrong, Jacob; there's no merit in doing it when
she's in the right."

"I think otherwise; at all events, it depends on how much she has been
in the wrong, and I consider you have shown a bad heart, Mary."

"A bad heart! in what way, Jacob?"

"In realising the fable of the boys and the frogs with the poor old
Dominie, forgetting that what may be sport to you is death to him."

"You don't mean to say that he'll die of love," replied Mary, laughing.

"I should hope not: but you may contrive, and you h