ery comfortable where we were, 'why do you
ask?'

'That's very strange,' said he, 'we called yesterday at one o'clock and
rang for twenty minutes. No one coming we concluded you had left for
Europe.'

'No,' I said, feeling rather confused, 'the waiter I believe is subject
to sciatica. At times he is taken suddenly and cannot move, and the
reason we did not hear the bell, (I looked away as I said so,) his cries
of pain are such that you cannot hear yourself speak.'

Now the door is answered before the first ring stops sounding. For I
arranged it so as to vibrate long enough to give a person time to go
from any part of the house in exactly two minutes; and no man of the
world rings oftener than once every three minutes. I would not have
written all this but my blessed sister soon entirely followed out my
reformation and is fairly convinced, as she says, that when a man sets
about any matter, he is very thorough: clear headed; and, above all, not
easily put down.

Oh! if all women thought so! eh, Mr. Caudle? I knew one learned
gentleman who only desired peace and good food. His wife never allowed
him to offer a suggestion. She called him a genius, and made him mind.

Formerly Mary rose thoughtful, with the pressure of business on her
brain. At meals she was abstracted, often worried, and at all times the
repository of domestic troubles. Her healthy organization was altogether
too mesmerized by the petty warfare below stairs. She was never idle,
and yet rarely accomplished anything for _herself_. Her position in the
household might have been called that of GRAND FINISHER. She planned
work and waited for its completion in vain. Finally she would bring it
into the library and stitch--stitch--all through the pleasant evenings.
I knew this, for I laid a plan. One April I asked her to work me a pair
of slippers on cloth. I presume a clever woman, undisturbed, could have
delivered them over to me at the end of the week. Now, no one is more
clever than my sister; yet I did not get those slippers till December;
and then she handed them to me in sadness, and said, with an attempt at
cheerfulness, 'dear William, I worked one myself, but my duties are such
that I gave out the other to that poor woman whose husband is at sea.
Has'nt she done it well?' Now, I find her reading, paying visits, and
often of an evening she comes to me and says, 'William, would'nt you
like some new handkerchiefs embroidered?' or 'can't I mend anything f