University of Virginia Library

2. PART II.

Two years passed away, two years of uninterrupted
connubial happiness, and each of
our lovely brides had become mothers!
Never was a man so delighted at being a
parent, as Harry Lee, and of a bright, healthy
boy, too, on which he could brag over his
friend Lionel, whose beautiful wife presented
him with a little girl; but as it was the perfect
miniature of his loved Caroline, he was
as well satisfied as Harry, though Harry's
boy was the picture of his `papa,'

`This is better than being a bachelor, hey,
Linton?' said Harry, one day, when they
had dined together at Lionel's house, and the
ladies had left the table to look after their
treasures in the nursery. `What a delightful
creature my wife is! I advise every man
to choose his wife for her pretty foot!'

`Pshaw, Harry,' said Lionel, filling his
wine-glass with ruby Port. `Caroline has
rather a larger foot, perhaps, than I should
like myself, but she makes as good a wife as
if she had the feet of a Chinese beauty. I
would't change her for any lady that wears
number ones that I have ever seen.'

`Not for Ellen? My heavens, Linton, you
must have a gross taste, not to admire Ellen's
sweet little feet. My boy has got small feet,
too—devilish small! But then it don't signify
so much in a boy!'

`Here's a bumper to him, Harry! and may
he get a wife as lovely as his father has obtained.'

`And with as small feet,' added Harry,
with a cheek flushed with wine, drinking off
the bumper.

`Confound your small feet, Harry! Why,
what kind of extremities would your grandchildren
have, in such case!'

`If they are girls, angelic ones!' replied

Harry, with animation. `But, by-the-by,
Lionel, have you and your pretty wife had
any matrimonial scenes together since you
have been married?'

`How do you mean?' asked Linton, slightly
coloring, and looking into his wine glass,
as if watching the reflection of his face.

`Any little misunderstandings, squabbles,
you know, eh?' repeated Harry, with a merry
twinkle in his mellow eyes.

`Why, no, not particularly, I believe,' answered
Linton, embarrassed in his manner.
`Why do you ask?'

`Why, between you and me, Lionel, I
think she speaks a little sharper to you on
occasions than a sweet tempered wife should
do.'

`Indeed,' said Linton laughing and blushing,
`how did you discover that?'

`Oh, by accident, several times! But you
didn't seem to observe it—at least, very wisely
paid no attention to her, and so it passed.
And I said to myself, I'll bet two to one, Linton
hasn't so sweet tempered a wife as I have.
She has, to tell you the truth, a little too
large a foot to be perfectly sweet tempered.
From more harmony and symmetry of person,
would have followed perfect harmony and
symmetry of disposition.'

`But hold, Harry! has your wife never
shown any temper? Have you never had
any of these matrimonial scenes you speak
of, eh, boy? Now out with the truth'—and
Lionel glanced at the door, and lowered his
voice—`we are alone.'

`Never, 'pon my honor, Linton! She is
invariably the same happy, cheerful creature,
with a most delightful disposition. She loves
me to devotion, and I repay her love with adoration.'

`Do you adore her, or her foot, Harry?'

`Her foot is the altar of the temple in
which my love worships! I kneel to that, but
my adoration is to the spirit that fills the fair
temple.'

`You are poetical, Harry! I believe you
speak truly of Ellen! She is indeed lovely
in her disposition.'

`Will you be as frank now about Caroline,'
said Harry, laughing and casting a mischievous
glance at his friend.

`Well, to tell you the truth, Harry.' he
said in a subdued tone, with his eye upon the
door through which the two wives had passed
to the nursery, `Caroline has but one fault!
She is, naturally, the best tempered, generous,
noble-minded creature in the world, but
she is—is—'

`Out with it; jealous of Ellen's pretty
feet.'

`No, but jealous of me.'

`Of you! of you, most chaste and noble
Joseph!' cried Harry, laughing; `ha, ha, ha!
And who is the fair lady whose charms are
so dangerous to her peace?'

`Your wife, Harry,' said Linton, with a
quiet smile.

`My wife,' cried Harry, looking all at once
very grave; `what the devil—what can she
think you have to do with my wife?'

`I can't tell,' replied Linton, amused at
Harry's sudden flash of incipient jealousy.

`Look here, Linton, have you been flirting
with Ellen, now?' seriously asked Harry,
with a most melancholy expression to his usually
cheerful features. `Tell me the truth,
and I'll forgive you—I will, upon my soul.'

`As I am a gentleman, and a man of honor,
no, my dear boy,' replied Linton, with a
sincerity, yet scarcely refraining from laughter
at his friend's very serious visage.

`I knew it, my dear boy, Linton, I knew it
could not be so,' said Harry, giving a long
breath: `you don't know how devilish bad I
felt. Ellen loves me with all her soul—but
then these women are women, and there is no
knowing how to take them! The best way
is to keep a sharp eye on them! heh, heh,
heh! Linton?'

`Yes, if you want them to run away when
you go to sleep! A husband's frank and open
confidence in his wife, is the safest security
to his martial honor.'

`I believe you, Linton! If wives are false,
it is the husbands that teach them the first
lesson. I have ever had the most unlimited
confidence in Ellen? I regret that I should
for an instant, have believed she would flirt
even with you—for flirtation in a wife, is the
first rehearsal of inconstancy.'

`You utter a severe truth, Harry.'

`Truth is always severe,' answered Harry,
with a dignity that became the tone of his
thoughts at that moment. `But how is it that

Caroline has become jealous of you? and of
Ellen, too! It must have been of her feet!'

`I can hardly conceive. She first manifested
it one day about four months ago,
when your Ellen, nurse and boy, were at my
house, and we were comparing babies.'

`I recollect the time, perfectly,' said Harry
cracking an almond, yet listening with
deep interest.

`I then remarked, for you have talked so
much about small feet being essential to
beauty in woman, I had, in part, imbibed your
foolish notions, taking up my little Ellen's
foot, when she grew up, would be as small as
and pretty as her's.'

`Yes, yes, I remember, and Caroline spoke
up rather sharply, rather more so at least,
than became a loving wife of two years, and
said, while her cheek heightened its hue,

`I wish you had married Ellen, then, if you
think a small foot so very desirable.' Yes I
recollect that perfectly, and it is one of the
occasions I alluded to. She is jealous, as I
told you, not of you, but of my wife's feet!
I exonerate you fully.'

`It amounts to the same thing which she is
jealous of. She plainly envies Ellen! But
it is my fault, as well as yours, too, Harry;
for we have put the idea into her head! I
shouldn't be surprized if it should be productive
of much misery to her.'

`Indeed, I trust not so serious a result,'
said Harry, with a look of solitude. `But then
women have made themselves wretched, and
their husbands, too, for more trifling matters.
But this occurred four months ago. She has
forgotten it now.'

`No—but it grows worse. Ellen never
comes to see us, that after she leaves, she
does not have a fit of those delightful little
pouting pantomimes, the sulks the whole day.'

`The duece she does! And how does she
treat Ellen?'

`Latterly, with increasing coldness. Have
you not observed it?'

`By Heaven, I have! I heard her at dinner,
as I was uncorking a bottle of Port, reply
to something Ellen said about her going
down to Lane's with her, after dinner, and
get some pairs of shoes, as I thought, in a
very ill-humored way, as I judged, by the
tone; but looking up, and seeing Ellen look
ing as smiling as ever—what a delightful
wife I've got, Linton!—I concluded I had imagined
the ill-humor. But then Ellen is so
sweet tempered, nothing Caroline could say
to her, would move her.'

`One would think you lauded Ellen so profusely,
Harry, to show Caroline in a darker
shade! But I hope she will, by-and-by, have
good sense enough to get over it.'

`And I increased the flame to-day, too.—
Don't you remember that I was thoughtless
enough, I see now, talking about a pretty woman
I had met down town, who was faultless,
save her feet, which I said, were not only
large, but that she used them as if a young
lady's feet were absolutely given her merely
to walk with, as wheels are put under a locomotive,
that it may go somehow over the
ground, instead of being, as Heaven designed
them, the loveliest features of beauty, given
her as wings are given angels, to transfer
her person from place to place, revealing, in
the act the harmony and dignity that dwells
in motion!'

`I remember laughing at you, Harry.'

`But your wife didn't laugh!'

`No.'

`No. She looked as grave as a prude.'

`I should have been pleased if she had only
looked grave. She looked very angry, in
my opinion.'

`Well, I said grave, out of respect for your
feelings, Lionel. She did look mad! And I
was struck at the reflection, how ill anger sits
on a pretty face! Evil passions are all ugly,
and the contrast is so great when they display
thsmselves in a beautiful countenance,
like Mrs. Linton's for instance, that the effect
is singularly unpleasing. On harsh, homely
faces, there is less contrast, and the effect is
less striking. I recollect a beautiful girl of
eighteen, I once saw very angry. She reminded
me of angel fallen! But I am very
sorry I have said anything to make Caroline
envious of Ellen. Two such friends! What
a sad affair it would be, if this should dissever
their friendship.'

`I fear it will!' said Linton, gravely; it
were indeed to be regretted. Confound your
mania for pretty feet, Harry!'

`I will say `amen,' if it is to be the cause
of mingling alloy in your cup of connubial

happiness. Caroline is such a lovely and generous
minded woman, too!'

`Yes, there is only this to mar our felicity.
In all else she is an incomparable creature,
Harry.'

`I will make Ellen wear No. 3's!' said his
friend, warmly.

`No, no! let it work its own cure.'

`But it won't. Let a woman that loves her
husband, once get the idea into her head that
he admires another woman for some point of
character she does not possess, or possessing
less perfection, she will soon believe that his
admiration extends to the whole woman, and
that he loves her better than herself. So ripe
jealousy comes of it; as Dow, Jr. would say
in his very excellent Patent Sermons, `her
thoughts will sit brooding in the nest of suspicion,
upon the eggs of envy, till they hatch
the little chickens of jealousy.' These chickens
must be plucked ere they get full feathered.'

`How can it be done, Harry?' asked Lionel,
with an interest that called forth his
friend's sympathy.

`Caroline's person and figure are faultless,
and though she wears No. 3's, if she had a
foot for No. 2's, it would be a deformity.
She is full three sizes in person larger than
Ellen, and her foot is not a hair's breadth too
large for her.'

`This I have always said, Harry.'

`And so have I. I said that I would not
marry a woman who wore a number higher
than a French one. I say so now! I married
such a woman! But I did not say a
woman's foot could not be perfectly beautiful
even with number fives. She may be tall
enough, and majestic enough to require such
a foot! How would Mrs. Siddons have looked
with a foot like Ellen's! absurd and deformed!'

`You are changing your tactics, Harry,'
said Linton, laughing.

`Not a shadow! I have always spoken as
I do. I only have always said I liked not a
woman with a large foot; and a woman with
too large a foot, which is very common, I
cannot endure.'

`What are you coming to, Harry?'

`To this point. Caroline's notions must
be reversed, or, rather, she must have her
ideas on this subject corrected. As I have
been mainly instrumental in giving her such
notions, in which both she and you have misunderstood
me, I must do my best to make
matters right again.'

`I wish to mercy you would, Harry, if possible;
for, to tell you the truth, it is ringing
in my ears from morning 'till night.

`What, does she box them?' asked Harry,
refilling very deliberately his champaign
glass, and looking up with a smile,

`Not quite—but it is almost as bad. The
other morning I happened to knock one of
her shoes aside with my foot, in crossing the
chamber, and she instantly cried, `You'd not
have kicked Ellen Lee's shoe in that way!
It is just because I wear a larger one than
she does, you treat me so;' and so she burst
into tears, got into bed again, and got up at
eleven o'clock with swollen eyes, as silent as
a mule.'

`Well, upon my soul, Linton, I am sorry.
But I have a plan to appeal to her good
sense.'

`What is it? name it, for Heaven's sake.'

`I was in Launitz's gallery last week, and
saw there, as I entered the door, a statue of
Dian, in casque, quiver, and sandal shoon!
I stood still without advancing nearer, and
gazed a long time on the figure, admiring its
just proportions and faultless symmetry; particulularly
was I fascinated with the foot,
which was as beautiful as Ellen's.'

“How is it,' said I, after surveying it awhile,
and turning round to the sculptor,
`how is it, Launitz, that every statue of the
mythological beauties is just the size of the
Medician Venus?”

“This is not,' he said, pointing to the statue
of the divine huntress. `The Venus personifies
Love, and is, therefore, small in staure,
for grace and love are more appropriately
and delicately illustrated by lessening the
real. Diana personifies woodland sports—
she is the genius of the chase! She is therefore
some inches taller than the genius of
love, that she may be fleet of foot, and light,
that she may pursue with swiftness! You
observe her feet are slender and larger than
those of the Medici, which is to your left;
and they should be so, to preserve the poetical
truth of the character.'

`You do not mean to say this statue of
Dian is taller than the Venus de Medici,' I
exclaimed with surprise, approaching it.

`Three inches!' he said, smiling; `its perfect
symmetry has deceived you!'

`Indeed it has,' said I, as I went close up
to it, when I saw that he had spoken the
truth. Yet the symmetry of person was so
well maintained, that a few steps off, I could
have sworn it was not taller than Ellen, or
the foot larger than her's—'

`And yet—'

`And yet it was, for I measured it, just the
height of your wife, and the foot half inch
longer than her's!'

`Excellent. And that has conceited you
to the belief that in symmetry may lie the
true principles of beauty, and not in the foot.'

`No, not exactly, but that a foot may be
large, and yet be faultless.'

`Good, my dear Harry, very good! Now
you are getting reasonable'

`Not a jot more so than I have been; for I
yield nothing, concede nothing of what I
have advocated. I have only learnt something
additional.'

`Well, and how are you going to make
this knowledge avail me in the matter of
Caroline's growing envy.'

`By taking her in to-morrow, as if by accident,
in passing by, to see this statue, and
with Launitz's explanation of the true principles
of beauty as they exist in one and the
other; Dian and Venus, and with a little tact
on my part, and address on your own, we
will make her in perfect good humor with
herself. Nay, I will wager she would afterwards
turn up her pretty nose at such a little
foot as Ellen's. I will call by at your house,
for you, as I come down from Bond street.'

`You are a clever dog, Harry,' cried Linton,
grasping his hand with a brightning eye.
`It shall be as you say—Caroline shall go
to-morrow. I hope this attempt to reconvert
her, will succeed!'

`Never doubt it, Lionel! Come, let us
take a bumper to your lovely Diana!'

`And I will toast your Venus, Harry.'

`Capital—our wives are both Goddesses,
and Dian shall reign in the empire of her
own chaste beauty, as well as Venus in that
of love. Come, Linton, another glass.'

`No, Harry.'

`Well, I will finish this bottle alone, then;
you keep good wine! By-the-by, a friend sent
me a present of a dozen of that fine old
Paulding's Pale we used to drink so much of,
when we were at the hotel. Do you sigh for
those days, Linton.'

`No, Harry, not if I could get Caroline
over this fit of jealousy.'

`Envy, not jealousy, my boy. Don't fear
but all will come out straight. She has been
sighing to be a Venus—we must convince
her she is a goddess, dear! You must come
down and help me to drink up that sherry.
By-the-by, that nice fellow, Sinclair, wrote
me a note he had just received a private importation
of `Londou Particular,' and wants
me to call at his house, to prove it. I had
like to forgot it. I must quit you, Harry, for
I would not miss Sinclair's wine, for nothing.
Your port is capital! peh, peh! It has a rich
warm flavor like Burgundy. Come to morrow,
at eleven. Make my excu-cuse to the
la-ladies, and tell Ellen I'll—that is you'll go
home with her. There she is now, l-loo-looking
l-like—l-like a p-p-p-pr-pretty foo-f-f-f-t.'

`Why, Harry, you're tipsy,' said Ellen,
coming in at that moment! `Lionel, how
could you let Harry help himself to so much
wine, when you know—'

`Y-yes—Lionel kn-knows, Ellen—Lionel
knows—' articulated, or rather stuttered the
very mellow Harry Lee, as he attempted to
cross from the table to the door.

`Where are you going, Harry?' said Ellen,
laughing, as he `vibrated' like an inverted
pendulum, as he tried to walk particularly
upright, and deluded himself with the idea
that he did so.

`I'm going home—no—yes, I'm going
home!'

`To go to bed, I dare say. Harry, why
will you take so much wine, when a very little
affects you so easily?'

`G-t-t get used to it, Ellen—I never'll get
used t-t-t-to it, if I don't, don't, don't get used
to it. Did you know that?'

`I know you shan't go home, but you shall
lie down on the sofa, here, and take a short
nap, and I will bathe your forehead with Cologne.'

Yes, that's dear woman, and them's my sentiments.'

And thus speaking in an amusingly drunken
manner, Harry Lee suffered his wife to
lead him to the sofa, where he soon fell
asleep. Lionel drew his chair near Ellen,
as she fanned Harry's heated brow, and began
to chat with her on the ordinary topics
of the day, when Caroline came in, and seeing
them so near together, though a chair's
space separated them, she cast an angry
glance at her husband, a revengeful one at
Ellen, and immediately retired, giving the
door a bang-to behind her.

`What is the matter with Caroline, to-day?'
anxiously inquired Ellen, unsuspecting her
innocent agency in causing her ill-humor.

`I can't tell you—you must ask Harry,
when he wakes up from his nap,' said Lionel,
with a sad smile, as he rose to follow his
wife, to soothe her; though he ought to have
known ere this, that an angry woman is hest
let alone. Persuasion irritates; anger makes
her worse; humble yourself, and she despises
you; condemn yourself falsely, and she treats
you as if you were really in the fault. If she
loves you, she will soon be sorry and seck
reconciliation; if she does not care for you,
she will get pleased, lest she spoil her beauty;
for every pretty woman knows nothing is
so poisonous to the complexion as anger;
nothing destroys beauty so quickly as frowns!
These judicious sayings are taken from an
`Old Booke,' entitled `Sweete Advisement
to Hushands and Wyfes to ye furthurance of
theer Hymeneal amicability.'

Mrs. Linton had retreated to her chamber,
and locked the door! Lionel tried the knob
once or twice, and then spoke in a low tone,
with his mouth to the key-hole.

`Caroline?'

No reply.

`Dear Caroline'—a little louder.

No reply.

`Sweetest Caroline, won't you answer?'

No reply.

`Caro, dear, let me in.' A pause.

No reply.

Lionel listened a moment, and then sigh
ing heavily, and wishing all feet, little and
big, to —, he turned to go down stairs.—
But Mrs. Linton did not intend to let him go
back to Ellen's society; she had quit the
room to make him leave her, as she knew
him well enough to know he would follow
her, if he saw her go out angry. So, as Lionel
reached the head of the stairs he heard
her door open. He looked back, but she was
not visible, but the door was wide spread.—
He returned, and softly entered. Caroline
was seated in a rocking chair, with her back
towards him, rocking very resolutely. He
closed the door and approached her. She
did not turn her head, but kept on rocking
and biting her thumb nail. He knelt on one
knee beside her, and took the hand that lay
on the arm of the chair, but she pulled it
away with a jerk. He sighed heavily, and
after a few seconds' silence, attempted to
take the other, on which she was leaning her
cheek. She snatched it away from him and
kicked the cricket over.

`Caroline, my sweet wife, how have I offended
you?'

The `sweet wife' bit her nail the harder,
and kept her eyes fixed on vacancy,

`Are you angry because I was talking with
Ellen?'

`No!' she replied in a tone so angry, that
it started him; and swinging her chair smartly
round, she left him at her back.

`What are you put out about, then?' he
asked, now almost angry himself.

`Nothing.'

`You are short and sweet. If I have unintentionally
given you offence, I ask your forgiveness,
Caroline,' he said calmly, but firmly;
`I can't remain here to see you conduct
yourself in this manner.'

`I suppose not, while Ellen Lee is down
stairs.'

`What is Ellen Lee to me, that I should
desire her society to my dear Caroline's?' he
said, taking her hand, which she instantly
withdrew from him.

Mrs. Linton remained silent, but still rocking
very perseveringly, and then, at length
replied in that cross and querulous tone, so
difficult to reply to safely, `You like her because
she has a small foot.'

`Upon my honor, Caroline, you wrong me

I have no thought of any one but you!'

`I know you love her! I know what you
think about a wife's foot! You ought to have
looked at my feet before you married me!'

`I wish to gracious I had,' was Lionel's
thought, but he did not speak it aloud. '
see Harry was a more sensible man than I
took him for! Well, Caro, what is to be
done? Are you to be angry all the evening
and expose yourself to Ellen?'

`Ellen, again! Ellen—it's all Ellen!' repeated
the lady, with sneering mockery, giv-giving
offence to her beautiful features. `I
expect it is with her `Lionel, dear Lionel,
nothing but `Lionel, all the time!

`What has possessed you, Caroline?'

`Nothing more than usual,' she answered,
suddenly changing her manner, ceasing to
rock, and taking up a book began to read it.
She looked as calm and placid as a summer's
morn! He gazed at her with surprize and
perplexity. He had been married, however.
but two years, and this was but a brief apprenticeship
to a pretty and especially a jealous
wife's whims. He did not know that this
was but another phase of her displeasure;
but believing she had become pleasant, he
put his arm about her to kiss her, when he
received a slap with the book on the cheek,
that created quite a revolution in his ideas.
Without a word he patiently bore it, and
stood gazing upon her with surprize. If he
had lived all his life a bachelor, he felt it
would not have taught him so much about
woman as he had learned in the last ten
minutes. He was silent and enduring, for
he remembered that she was the `weaker vessel,'
and that he had pledged himself to love
and cherish her. He was now practising a
hard lesson in love: for it is a very hard one
to love anybody that slaps us angrily in the
face with a book, while the pain is still felt.
Her generosity of spirit should have instantly
done homage to his forbearance; but she was
angry, and that is a great cover for every
thing angered persons do, that is unjust to
be wrapped up in!

Caroline, however, seemed a little ashamed,
but shame wouldn't heal her envy and
jealousy.

`Mrs. Linton, you are certainly a very
strange wife!' at length said Lionel, in as
mild a tone as he could assume.

`And you are a very strange husband, Mr.
Linton.'

`What have I done?'

`How innocent, all at once!' and she curled
her lip.

`I am innocent of wronging you, Caroline,
in any way.'

`How mild, sir, all at once. How I like to
see a husband mild.'

`What a vexatious person you are! You
curl your lip with such bitterness and scorn
that either you must be a very had woman or
I a very bad man.'

`There! you've just hit!'

`Good Heaven! what has got into you?
You make yourself the most disagreeable,
hateful woman I ever saw.'

`Yes, yes—I am not quite so charming, I
know, as Ellen Lee.'

`Confound Ellen Lee.'

`Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mrs. Linton, nervously
rocking back in her chair.

`You are determined to madden me—make
me beside myself.'

`Ellen will then restore you to your senses.
I dare say you call and have a tete-a-tete with
her every day you go out to walk.'

`Never, Caroline!'

`You have been seen twice walking in
Broadway with her, and did not tell me of it.'

`And who has been trying to make mischief?
And what harm to walk with her?
Each time I had met her with Harry, who
turned her over to me, pleading engagements
down town.'

`Yes, oh yes!' she said with scornful incredulity,
tossing her pretty head. `And you
didn't go in and stay an hour, and no one else
at home! Oh, ho.'

`Upon my soul, I think you ean manage
for so lovely a woman, to make yourself excessively
disagreeable. Once for all, Mrs.
Linton, are you jealous of my acquaintance
with Harry's wife. If you are, I will speak
to her no more from this hour.'

`Jealous! Ha, ha! I jealous of you! No,
no! If I was jealous, I have beauty enough
to make you sick of flirting with other women!'

`Do you mean that you will seek the attentions

of men of gallantry?' he demanded with
astonishment and pain.

`I don't say what I mean or do not mean.
I am not jealous! Jealous! Ha, ha, ha!' and
she rocked away harder than before, and
nearly bit through her fingers' ends to the
blood.

`Will you then be pleasant? You know I
love you,' he said tenderly.

`Not quite so well as Ellen Lee.'

`If you mention that name again, I will
run away from you,' said Lionel, impatiently.
`You are jealous of me, envious of Ellen, and
try to render yourself and me miserable, all
without a shadow of cause.

Caroline became pale at her husband's
stern reproof, and it was plain a little firmness
on his part would have subdued her
quite.

`Do you not dislike me because I have a
foot longer than Ellen's, Mr. Linton?' she
asked with something less of anger.

`No.'

`Do you not love Ellen for her pretty foot.'

`No.'

`I know you do now, and I know Ellen
tries to contrast herself with me to my disadvantage?
She always has her foot out on an
ottoman or cricket! It is always to be seen.'

`Because Harry's vanity makes her wear
her dresses shorter than ordinary, and she—'

`Oh, yes, she'll find a defender and champion
in you, Lionel,' she said with inimitable
scorn.

`I think I had best hold my tongue,' he
said pettishly.

`I think you had,' she repeated with a bitter
laugh.

We think if he had altogether held his
tongue, it wonld have been altogether best;
for up to this point matters stood as they
were when he came in to the chamber—if
any thing, rather worse. At this instant
Harry's voice was heard below stairs, and
Lionel, whose natural goodness of the heart,
and love for his wife would not let him retain
revenge against her, hastily kissed her
angry cheek, and kindly asking her if she
wouldn't soon come down, left the chamber.
Harry's short nap had restored him to a degree
of sobriety, and he was ready to leave
to go to his friend Sinclair's wine-proving.
Ellen quickly perceived that something unpleasant
had occurred between Lionel and
Caroline, and she ordered her carriage, saying
it would be too late for the baby to be
out if she did not go then. Lionel saw her
and Harry off, and then returned to the dining
room, hoping Caroline would come down.
But he saw her no more that night, for when
he went to retire, she sent him word that the
nurse was in her room with her for the night,
and that he might go down and sleep on a
sofa in his library, if he chose to. He sighed,
and for the first time since his marriage,
tried a bachelor's bed again in the small
front room adjoining the parlor, which he had
made a sort of library and smoking room
having luxuriously furnished it with lounges,
and pillows, and ottomans. Here he took
up his quarters for the night!

`Who wouldn't remain a bachelor if he
knew what it was to be a married man?'
sighed he, as he threw himself upon his
solitary couch. `Yet, if Caroline wasn't jealous,
I wouldn't change my state to what it
was, for with all my trouble, I have enjoyed
more real pure happiness the two years I have
been married, than in all my bachelor iife!
Well, he who would have the rose must have
the thorn!'

With this patient reflection, the bed-banished
husband turned himself over and went
to sleep.

In the meanwhile, Harry and his wife had
reached home, the carriage drove round to
the stables, and taking leave of Ellen on the
steps of his door, he was departing on his
wine-engagement with his friend Sinclair,
when she called him;

`You will go by Lane's Harry—wait and
take my gaiter-boots and leave them there.
You can put them in your pocket, you know.'

`Yes, in my vest pocket. What is to be
done to them?'

`The silk is split across the instep, and I
want you to ask him if he can close it again
neatly—if not to cover them with new fawn-colored
silk.'

`But get a new pair, Ellen.'

`No—I have not worn these three times,
and they are such a pretty shape.'

`So they are! I will take them down Ellen,
if you will give them to me'

His wife after a moment's absence returned
and placed in his hands a pair of the most
exquisitely shaped French fawn-colored
boots. Harry looked at them almost adoringly,
and then examining the rent carefully,
placed them in his coat pocket.

`Now don't lose them out Harry,' she said,
as he walked off in the direction of Broadway,
with the toes of the little boots peeping
out of his pocket.

`Oh, no—I shall keep them safely, Ellen.'

`Now come home early—and don't try too
much of Captain Sinclair's `London Particular,'
because you know, Harry—'

`Yes, I know—I'll be prudent, you may
depend upon me.'

`Call in at Caroline's, when you come up,
as you pass right by the house, and see if
they have got over then little affair.'

`Yes, perhaps I will. Adieu, my fair!'—
Harry kissed his hand, and waived his lovely
wife a gallant adieu.

The evening at Captain Sinclair's passed
off pleasantly, and about half past nine, Harry
left most particularly mellow, to proceed
home on foot—for he loved walking in preference
to the omnibus-creeping dot-and-go-one
pace. As he passed the head of Murray
street, he recollected that he had forgotten
to leave Ellen's boots in coming down, and
immediately turned and went into Lane's
fashionable ladies' shoe mart.

`Ah, eh! Lane, good evening,' he said tipsily
and pleasantly; `here's a pair of Mrs.
Lee's gaiter boots—split out, you see—Ellen
wants them sewed.' And Harry taking them
from his pocket gave them to him.

`Yes, I see, sir,' said Lane examining the
rent and shaking his head; `but I fear it
can't be done.'

`It must be done—must, must be, be d-done
Lane,' said Harry, keeping himself
steady with his hand on the back of a chair.

`It will cost quite as much as a new pair
of boots, to repair it—the whole silk must be
taken off—the welts made new—it will be
quite as much work as to make a new boot,
Mr. Lee. In fact, I would rather make a
new pair.'

`Develish bad, Lane! Ellen's favorite
boots! Mine too! Small foot my wife has,
eh, Lane?'

`The prettiest boots I ever made, sir,' said
Lane, admiring them. `I would know her
shoe or boot if I saw it anywhere.'

`So you would—so anybody would. Lane,
you're a man of sentiment—of talk, I mean.
But you can't mend 'em, eh?'

`I am sorry to say no, sir.'

`Well, I'll take them along with me, and
try some other shoe store—perhaps some on
'em may find a way of fixing 'em.'

`Perhaps so, Mr. Lee; but I advise you to
have a new pair—they are quite useless to
you.'

`Are they, Lane?—then I'll take them and
give 'em to some little poor child in the
street. 'Tis a pity to lose 'em; such, such
a p-pr-pret-ty fool!' and Harry recovering
himself from a slight `vibration,' held up the
boots to his own admiring eyes.

He then put them in his pocket, and walked
as erect as a granadier, from the shoe
store—tipsy gentlemen always walk particularly
erect, if they can!

Notwithstanding Lane's judgment passed
upon the boots, Harry took them into Whittington's
and one or two other places, where
he found condemnation passed upon them
equally strong as at Lane's. He therefore
became a little irritated, and was half of a
mind to throw them into the street. While
in this mood of temper, and yet holding them
in his hand, he came opposite Linton's house.
He remembered Ellen's request for him to
call; but looking up at the house and seeing
no lights, he concluded not to do so, and was
about passing on, when he saw that the window
of Lionel's library, where he was sleeping
on the ottoman, was let down at the top,
for the night was warm and close. Thereupon
a thought struck him, and turning back
a step, he tossed Ellen's hapless boots thro'
into the room, and went on his way whistling,
with an occasional hiccup for a second,

The ensuing morning, Mrs. Caroline Linton
awoke, and lay reflecting upon all her
conduct to Lionel. Her conscience convicted
her of injustice towards him, and she resolved
she would make him unhappy no

longer by her jealousy. A night's sleep and
the subsequent morning's reflections, often
produce great changes in the minds both of
men and women. Caroline felt she had been
wrong, and herein her good sense had the
ascendency.

`I will go down to the library, and while
he is asleep kiss him, wake him, and ask his
forgiveness for my folly, and I will be jealous
and envious no longer—for I know he loves
me with all his noble and manly heart.'

With this sensible and very praiseworthy
resolution, she rose, threw on her snowy robe
de chambre, and stole softly down stairs. All
was still in the halls, and she timidly approached
the door of the library. It was partly
open, and she entered. Her husband lay
asleep on the ottoman, in his dressing gown.
She bent over him, and then lightly kissed
his forehead! The touch, slight as it was,
awakened him, and looking up he smiled upon
hor with a calm joy that he could not give
utterance to, and folded her to his heart.

`You have slept badly here, I fear, Lionel,'
she said, after a few moments' silence between
them, during which he held her hand affectingly
and happily in his.

`Pretty well, wife—I have, however, been
a long while unfamiliar with a bachelor's
lodgings,' he said smiling.

`Forgive me, Lionel! I have acted very
foolishly. Won't you forgive me?'

`With all my heart.'

`If you will, I will never mention Ellen to
you again.'

`Nor doubt my love for you?'

`No, never again, husband. I know you
don't think of Ellen, except as my friend and
as Harry's wife.'

`You do me but justice, dear Caroline,' he
said tenderly.

`And I promise you I will never be jealous
of you and Ellen a—' here she checked herself,
uttered a shriek, and springing forward,
caught up one of Ellen's boots which lay at
the end of the sofa. Oh, what mischief Harry
set on foot.

`Good God! what is all this! cried Lionel,
seizing his wife by the arm, not seeing the
cause of her shrick.

`What is it, Mr. Innocence? Look at this!
whose boot is this, sir?' and she held up the
hapless gaiter-boot to Lionel's astonished
eyes.

`It looks like Ellen's,' he said with surprise.

`Looks like Ellen's! You know it is her's;
and now tell me how it came here?'

`Upon my soul, I am ignorant as the babe
unborn.'

`You do know. A lady's boot in your
sleeping-room and you innocent of all knowledge
of it!'

`It may have been thrown into the library
door, yesterday, by her nurse. If there were
a pair of them found, your suspicions might
have some foundation!' pleaded Lionel in the
most unlucky sentence a man ever uttered.

`Then,' she shrieked, her searching and
jealous eyes having discovered the toe of the
other peeping from beneath the sofa, `then
you have condemned yourself out of your
own mouth, Sir! Look at this, too!' and she
held up the mate to the eye of the astounded
husband. Lionel gazed upon it as if it had
been a basalisk.

`Well, Sir,' demanded the infuriated wife,
her eyes flashing, her cheek pale, and her
whole form heaving with anger, wounded
pride, and violent jealousy.

`By mine honor, Caroline, I know nothing
about it.'

`You do—you do, Mr. Linton! Where is
she—where is the wicked thing concealed?'
And Mrs. Linton flew to the window curtains,
and examined their folds—lifted the
drapery before a book case, got down on the
floor and looked under the sofas and ottomans
—peeped behind the door, and then taking
breath, came and thrust the fatal boots once
more in poor Lionel's face.'

`Oh, you villain!' she cried nervously, and
with terrific emotion shaking her whole frame,
`you will be the death of me! You will, you
will!' and overcome by the intensity and excess
of her feelings, she shrieked, and fell
fainting into the arms of her grieved, wondering,
alarmed and puzzled husband.

`Mrs. Linton was conveyed to her chamber,
a servant despatched for a physician, and
another for Harry and his wife. These parties
all arrived about the same time, and
Lionel taking Harry aside, privately communicated
the whole matter to him. He was

listened to very gravely by his friend, who,
when he had concluded, gave himself freely
up to the merriest fit of laughter, he had ever
indulged in. When, at length, Lionel could
make him speak, he explained to him how
the boots came in his room.

`Come, for heaven's sake, to Caroline's
room with me,' cried Lionel, dragging him
by the arms; `she is calmer now. You have
almost been my ruin; you snall now save
me.'

Harry went into the chamber where Caroline
lay, with her arm bound up, for she had
just been bled for a determination of blood
to the brain. She had fiercely forbidden Ellen
to come near her, and when Lionel entered,
she shrieked, and called him her murderer.

Harry, however, succeeded in calming her
sufficiently to listen to him, when he explained
in his humorous and happy way, the
adventure of the boots. Caroline listened at
first with incredulity; but as Harry concluded,
she felt convinced of the truth of his account,
especially when she called to mind that
he had as much cause for jealousy about the
introduction of the boots into Lionel's sleeping
room, as herself. After a few moment's
reflection, with her hands covering her face,
she looked up with a sweet smile and silently
extended one hand to Lionel, the other to
Ellen—the one pressed her to his grateful
heart, the other affectionately kissed her
cheek, and a full and perfect reconcilliation
was ratified and sealed.

`I will never be jealous again, Lionel, be
circumstances ever so strong against you; I
feel I have been very silly, and made you and
Ellen very unhappy. I hope you will both
forgive me.'

`And am I to be forgiven?' asked Harry,
taking her hand, `for making so much mischief?'

`Freely, since you have so well repaired the
mischief you have done,' she said gaily; `but
I hope you will be careful never to throw a
lady's boots, particularly your wife's, into a
gentleman's window again!'

It will be well to mention that the visit to the
statue of Diana at Launitz's studio, was made,
and that the result was most happy on the
mind of the beautiful and Diana-like Mrs.
Linton; who, from that moment, was no more
jealous of Ellen's small foot, being perfectly
satisfied that a lady may wear number three's
and yet have as beautiful and symmetrical
feet as one who wears number one French
gaiter boots.