No two persons are more dissimilar than a gentleman dining-out, and the same individual quietly taking a family dinner at home. The smiling guest has a keen relish for every article placed before him, and should the rules of etiquette not allow him to express his gratification in words, he manifests in every possible way his entire approbation of the cuisine of his host.

Mr. Andrew Dormer was a favorite guest at the tables of his wealthy fellow-citizens. His perfect suavity of manner, his keen appreciation of gastronomic art, and his skillful carving, won greater favor than would the possession of the richest treasures of learning or the highest intellectual endowments. “A clever fellow,” was Andrew Dormer when dining out. But, whereas the rules of society require that a guest should be pleased with every thing, the modern social economy demands that the master of a family should, at home, be pleased with nothing. The forementioned sprites of the air who attended at the family dinners of the Dormers, were beginning to look a little glum; the only bright things to be seen on these occasions were the polished knives and Miss Ariana’s eyes.

The door had scarcely closed after the exit of Mr. Atherton Burney, when the shuffling and stamping were heard by which the lord of the mansion was wont to announce his arrival. Before the meek Mrs. Dormer obtained a view of that redoubtable personage, a scolding soliloquy fell upon her trembling ear.

“Nothing ever in order in this house! A mat I bought only a month ago, all torn to rags! Smell of dinner coming all the way to the front door! Over-done! Knew it by the first snuff! Bad servants! All this comes of a careless mistress. Harriet! Harriet, I say!”

“What is it, Andrew?” inquired the soft voice of Mrs. Dormer, as she put her head timidly out of the dining-room door.

“Nothing in this house but rack and ruin,” exclaimed Mr. Dormer, dashing more vinegar into his tone and manner than either the occasion or his own feelings required. “What’s the use of buying any thing, I say, if this is the way it is to be treated?” And he pointed at the mat, which his own outrageous stamping had torn to tatters.

Ariana had the same instinctive knowledge of a family feud as the war-horse has of a battle, and rushed to the charge in her sister’s defense.

“What!” she exclaimed, “all that hemp left of the mat you have tried so faithfully to annihilate! When I heard your last furious attack, I did not think there would be a single shred remaining in the shape of a mat.”

Such a beseeching look as Mrs. Dormer gave Ariana as she herself stood trembling in her shoes!

What was the reason, that instead of becoming indignant at the impertinence of his sister-in-law, Mr. Dormer tried to look amiable? It might have been that he read that mischievous glance, which said, “Ignoble ambition to be a triton among ‘minnows.’”

If Ariana had not been dependent she would have been less saucy, but so fearful was she of becoming cringing from interested motives, that she went to the other extreme, and dared

The brother-in-law could no more dispense with her racy society, than with pungent sauces for his piscatory favorites. Instead of becoming angry when Ariana declared that she had seen too much of men at home ever to marry, he was heartily glad of a determination which insured the continuance under his roof of his merry antagonist.

Never was married woman so wretched herself that she discouraged matrimony among her young relatives and friends. Scarcely were the Dormers seated at dinner, and the first outbreak of invectives against cook, waiter and market-woman at an end, than the meek Harriet remarked, with an attempt at the playfulness for which she was distinguished before broken to the hymenial yoke: “Ariana, you had better have the ham placed before you, that you may learn to carve, as I suspect from the visit which you received this morning that you will soon be at the head of your own table.”

Mr. Dormer checked the grimace by which he was expressing disgust at the over-done mutton before him, and stared, but ventured not a question.

“Never more mistaken in your life, sister. Mr. Dormer cannot spare me,” was Ariana’s laughing reply; “he would burst a blood-vessel in one of his fury-fits, if I were not here to soothe him.”

“Am I such a tyrant then?” asked Mr. Dormer, in nearly as humble a tone as his wife would have used.

“A very despot; but not worse at heart than most men. There is scarcely one who does not revenge himself for the rude world’s buffetings, by inflicting all sorts of petty annoyances upon those at home,” was the calm reply.

“You will certainly be an old maid, Ariana,” remarked Mrs. Dormer, as she cast a furtive glance at the engrossing object of all her thoughts.

“A consummation devoutly to be wished,” said Ariana, smiling at the fearful tone in which the remark was made. “I had rather be caged in a menagerie, than obliged from morning to night to listen to the growling of a human tiger.”

“Mr. Atherton Burney is very mild, and only needs a gentle shepherdess to make him perfectly lamb-like,” said Mr. Dormer, with an attempt at sportiveness which reminded his sister of the fabled donkey emulating the lap-dog’s playfulness.

“I never liked pastorals,” she began, but the time for joking was at an end.

The servant, in handing Mr. Dormer a glass of water, spilled part of the contents upon his plate, and stood trembling at the angry rebuke which his carelessness had called forth.

“Misnamed lords of creation,” thought Ariana for the hundredth time, as she saw what a trifle had disturbed her brother’s equanimity.

There was a dead silence for a few moments, only broken by the clatter of knives and forks, and then Mr. Dormer, casting very much such a glance at his sister-in-law as a naughty boy would at his offended mamma, muttered—“the steamer is in to-day and the banks are breaking faster than ever.”

Mrs. Dormer looked sympathetic at this intelligence, and Ariana remarked kindly—“Business troubles you then! It must be very tormenting,” and a suspicion flashed across her mind that men, after all, might sometimes have an excuse for their ill-humor.

“Well, if we are to lose our money, let us keep our temper,” she added, as she rose to leave the table. Then turning to her sister she said—“Don’t sit up for me, Harriet. If I am not at home before nine, I shall stay all night at sister Jane’s—she sent for me to spend the evening with her, and—and you know it is always quite uncertain whether Mr. Daley will be in a humor to escort me home.”

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