"My dear John," said the doctor's wife, "when does the new carriage
come home? I thought we were to have had it this week. The old chariot
looked so dull to-day, just as you were going out, when Dr. Fitzlane's
new chocolate-colour passed; certainly that chocolate-coloured
carriage picked out with blue and those blue liveries are very, very
pretty."

"Well, Lucy, I think them too gay--the liveries I mean--for an
M.D.; quieter colours do best; and as to the new carriage, I had not
absolutely ordered it. I don't see why I cannot go on with the jobs;
and I almost think I shall do so, and appropriate the money I intended
for _my own_ carriage to another purpose."

"What purpose?"

"Why, to effect an insurance on my life. There was a great deal
of truth in what Charles said the other day, although he said it
coarsely, which is not usual with him; but he felt the subject, and
I feel it also; so I think of, as I said, going quietly on with the
jobs--at all events till next year--and devoting this money to the
insurance."

It is difficult to believe how any woman, situated as Mrs. Adams was,
could have objected to a plan so evidently for her advantage and the
advantage of her family; but she was one of those who never like to
think of the possibility of a reverse of fortune--who thrust care off
as long as they can, and who feel more pleasure in being lavish as to
the present than in saving for the future.

"I am sure," she answered, in the half-petted half-peevish tone that
evinces a weak mind--"I am sure if any thing was to happen to you, I
would break my heart at once, and my family, of course, would provide
for the children. I could not bear the idea of reaping any advantage
by your death; and really the jobs are so very inferior to what they
used to be--and Dr. Leeswor, next door but one, has purchased such a
handsome chariot--you have at least twice his practice; and--Why, dear
John, you never were in such health; there will be no necessity for
this painful insurance. And after you have set up your _own_ carriage,
you can begin and lay by, and in a few years there will be plenty for
the children; and I shall not have the galling feeling that any living
thing would profit by your death. Dear John, pray do not think of this
painful insurance; it may do very well for a man like your brother--a
man with out refinement; but just fancy the mental torture of such a
provision."

Much more Mrs. Adams talked; and the doctor,