ump 'em up, and make 'em dainty," he advanced in
contravention of his wife's talk of bread and beef.

But he did not complain. If it came to an argument, the farmer sidled
into a secure corner of prophecy, and bade his wife to see what would
come of having dainty children. He could not deny that bread and beef
made blood, and were cheaper than the port-wine which doctors were
in the habit of ordering for this and that delicate person in
the neighbourhood; so he was compelled to have recourse to secret
discontent. The attention, the time, and the trifles of money shed upon
the flower garden, were hardships easier to bear. He liked flowers,
and he liked to hear the praise of his wife's horticultural skill. The
garden was a distinguishing thing to the farm, and when on a Sunday he
walked home from church among full June roses, he felt the odour of them
to be so like his imagined sensations of prosperity, that the deception
was worth its cost. Yet the garden in its bloom revived a cruel blow.
His wife had once wounded his vanity. The massed vanity of a silent man,
when it does take a wound, desires a giant's vengeance; but as one can
scarcely seek to enjoy that monstrous gratification when one's wife is
the offender, the farmer escaped from his dilemma by going apart into a
turnip-field, and swearing, with his fist outstretched, never to forget
it. His wife had asked him, seeing that the garden flourished and the
farm decayed, to yield the labour of the farm to the garden; in fact, to
turn nurseryman under his wife's direction. The woman could not see
that her garden drained the farm already, distracted the farm, and most
evidently impoverished him. She could not understand, that in permitting
her, while he sweated fruitlessly, to give herself up to the occupation
of a lady, he had followed the promptings of his native kindness, and
certainly not of his native wisdom. That she should deem herself `best
man' of the two, and suggest his stamping his name to such an opinion
before the world, was an outrage.

Mrs. Fleming was failing in health. On that plea, with the solemnity
suited to the autumn of her allotted days, she persuaded her husband to
advertise for an assistant, who would pay a small sum of money to learn
sound farming, and hear arguments in favour of the Corn Laws. To please
her, he threw seven shillings away upon an advertisement, and laughed
when the advertisement was answered, remarking that he doubted much
wh