s a sip of Cologne: so,
convinced that the breach of discipline was the guilty act of a servant,
with all the offended dignity I could embody in my deportment, I went
straight to the chamber of my wife.

Without being deficient in moral courage, I am not a boisterous man. I
do not boast of an eye like Mars, to threaten and command, or glory in
producing a shudder with the creaking of my shoes. I mention this to
show that my manner, though rebuking, was not intended to be severe. To
awe by my authority, and soothe by my condescension, was the design; but
even in this limited effort I am conscious of a lamentable failure.

Seated upon the floor, within an airy castle of dry-goods, whose
battlements of flannel and linen cambric frowningly encircled her, was
Malinda Jane. Before it, like an investing army, with colors flying, and
a face radiant with defiant triumph, was Mrs. Mountchessington Lawk.
She had complacently opened the siege with the mixture of a hot
gin-toddy. My appearance upon this warlike scene was the signal for a
salute both loud and watery (in short, tearful), entered into with a
mutual heartiness by besieger and besieged. It was, moreover, rendered
impressive by a waving spoon, which Mrs. Mountchessington Lawk moved
solemnly backward and forward in a warning, funereal manner, as though
protesting against some appalling fate. That she was in possession of my
apartment, if not my house, I instinctively realized. She sat bolt
upright, firm and strong as a Hindoo idol on its altar; a nebulous glare
invested her head with a halo, through which bristling hair-pins stuck
out in all directions, like lightning-rods with fitfully luminous
points. The crystal wall of spectacles that bridged her nose seemed
graven with the cabalistic words, "I've got you." A feeling of conscious
guilt, of what an enfeebled mind failed to grasp, succumbed to the
shock.

From amid the joint chorus of sobs and tears which burst forth with the
wail of a Scottish slogan or an Indian death-song, I heard--

"Oh, my poor darling! Oh, my poor dear angel! Oh, Mr. Butterby, how
_could_ you?"

"Madam," I inquired, in amazement, "how could I what?"

It may be well to state the endearing epithet was applied to Malinda
Jane.

"Oh, dear! dear! and all this time she has been scrimping and saving, I
was unconscious as a child unborn. Cruel, _cruel_ man!"

Mrs. Lawk, burying her hand in the depths of her pocket, drew forth an
attenuated handke