, _inter alia_, that I once surprised a dignified and
highly-distinguished judge at a game of blindman's buff with his
children, and very heartily he appeared to enjoy it too. "It is really
time that a properly-qualified governess had charge of those girls. Susan
May did very well as a nursery teacher, but they are now far beyond her
control. _I_ cannot attend to their education, and as for you"--The
sentence was concluded by a shrug of the shoulders and a toss of the
head, eloquently expressive of the degree of estimation in which _my_
governing powers were held.

"Time enough, surely, for that," I exclaimed, as soon as I had composed
myself; for I was a little out of breath. "They may, I think, rub along
with Susan for another year or two, Mary is but seven years of age"--

"Eight years, if you please. She was eight years old last Thursday
three weeks."

"Eight years! Then we must have been married nine; Bless me, how the time
has flown: it seems scarcely so many weeks!"

"Nonsense," rejoined my wife with a sharpness of tone and a rigidity of
facial muscle which, considering the handsome compliment I had just paid
her, argued, I was afraid, a foregone conclusion. "You always have
recourse to some folly of that sort whenever I am desirous of entering
into a serious consultation on family affairs."

There was some truth in this, I confess. The "consultations" which I
found profitable were not serious ones with my wife upon domestic
matters; leading, as they invariably did, to a diminution instead of an
increase of the little balance at the banker's. If such a proposition
could therefore be evaded or adjourned by even an extravagant compliment,
I considered it well laid out. But the expedient, I found, was one which
did not improve by use. For some time after marriage it answered
remarkably well; but each succeeding year of wedded bliss marked its
rapidly-declining efficacy.

"Well, well; go on."

"I say it is absolutely necessary that a first-rate governess should be
at once engaged. Lady Maldon has been here to-day, and she"--

"Oh, I thought it might be her new ladyship's suggestion. I wish the
'fountain of honor' was somewhat charier of its knights and ladies, and
then perhaps"--

"What, for mercy's sake, are you running on about?" interrupted the lady
with peremptory emphasis. "Fountains of honor, forsooth! One would
suppose, to hear you talk in that wild, nonsensical way, that you were
addressing a bench