tion of telling him not to help her too much,
for fear, after the manner of her kind, she should discover a delicacy
of constitution which would prevent her from lifting the water-bottle
even when it was empty.

"And I'll tell you what I've been doing on the quiet for him to show
him that I'm not ungrateful. You know his white waistcoats have been
done up at the laundry so scandalous that I'd not have the face to be
taking your money if I were that laundryman, so I've just done them
myself, and would you take a look at them before I carry one back for
him to put on?"

I took a look, and they were of that faultless order of work that makes
you think the millennium has come.

I took one back to where the Angel stood before the mirror wrestling in
a speaking silence with his tie. I had not been married long, but I
had already learned that there are some moments in a man's life which
are not for speech. He smiled at me in the glass to let me know that
he recognized my presence, and would attend to me later.

When the tie was made, I drew a long breath.

"The country is saved once more!" I sighed.

He laughed. I mean he smiled. Not once a month does he laugh, and
always then at something which I don't think in the least funny.

As he took the waistcoat from my hand his face lighted up.

"Now that is something like!" he said. "I tell you it pays to complain
once in awhile. I wrote that laundry a scorcher about these
waistcoats."

"It does pay," I said. Then I explained.

"Do you know what I think?" he said. "I think we've got a regular old
cast-iron angel in Mary."

"Oh, rap on wood," I cried, frantically reaching out with both hands.
"Do you want her to spill soup down your neck tonight?"

"I didn't think," he said, apologetically, groping for wood. "_Now_,
do I dare speak?"

"Yes, go on. What do you think of her?"

"I think she is thoroughly competent to deal with the emergencies of a
New York apartment-house. This morning just before I went out I heard
her holding a heart-to-heart talk with the grocer. It seems that the
eggs come in boxes done up in pink cotton and laid by patent hens that
stamp their owner's name on each egg. For the privilege of eating
these delicacies we pay the Paris price for eggs. Now it would also
seem that these hens guarantee at that price to lay and deliver to the
purchaser an unbroken, uncracked, wholly perfect egg in the first flush
of its youth. But to-day th