HUSBAND AND WIFE.

Back and forth, up and down—creak, creak, creak, strides Mr. Hazleton. From the back parlor to the front, from the front to the back—his head down, his lips firmly compressed, his arms crossed behind his back, while, by the knitting of his brows and the occasional jerk he gives his head, it is very easy to see that the mind of Mr. Hazleton is crossed also.

And how perfectly unconscious sits the lady in black satin upon the sofa! With what a nonchalant air she beats the time with her foot, upon the little brioche, to the air she is humming. The spirit of the storm—yet herself how calm! Nothing vexes an angry man more, perhaps, than indifference to his anger. Mrs. Hazleton knew her advantage, and she also knew she was idolized, as young and pretty wives are apt to be, whose husbands, like poor Mrs. ——, are a “score of years too old.” Pretty sure, therefore, of carrying her point in the matter under debate, she highly enjoyed this unwonted ebullition of anger in her usually placid husband. By degrees the features of Mr. Hazleton softened—his step became slower and lighter, and then approaching the sofa, he said, in a tone which was evidently meant to be conciliatory,

“Come, come, this is all very foolish. I think I know your goodness of heart too well, my dear Anna, to believe you serious, or that you will receive so ungraciously the child of my only sister.”

“Mr. Hazleton, I tell you again,” replied the lady, carelessly playing with her eye-glass, “you are demanding a most unheard-of thing! Were she only coming here for a few days, to see the lions and be off to the woods again, I assure you I would be the most attentive chaperone. I would escort her from one end of the city to the other with the greatest pleasure, and load her off with ribbons, gew-gaws, and the latest novel, when the joyful moment came for my release. But a fixture for the winter—and that, too, my dear Julia’s first winter—O, heavens!”

Something very like an oath whistled through the teeth of Mr. Hazleton.

“Madam—Mrs. Hazleton—let me tell you I consider your remark as reflecting upon myself. No relative of mine, madam, can ever disgrace either yourself or your daughter, in any society.”

“Indeed!” was the cool reply.

“And I insist upon your treating my niece, Alice Churchill, not only with politeness, but with kindness—and your daughter also must be schooled to meet her as her equal.”

“Her equal, indeed!” and now the ire of Mrs. Hazleton was fast kindling to a flame. “Her equal! I would ask you, Mr. Hazleton, if the Ninnybrain blood flows in her veins?—the Ninnybrains, Mr. Hazleton, one of whom was maid of honor to a queen—another?—”

“Pish!” interrupted Mr. Hazleton, “and confound all the Ninnybrains!”

“Confound the Ninnybrains! Very pretty, really—yes, so much for marrying beneath me! Confound all the Ninnybrains, I think you said!”

“Yes, and I repeat, confound them all! What have they to do with my poor little Alice?”

It was now Mrs. Hazleton’s turn to sail majestically from room to room, muttering,

“Hem! very pretty treatment—very pretty, indeed!”

While her husband, throwing himself into the seat she had just occupied upon the sofa, very coolly knocked his heels upon the unfortunate footstool. At length the lady paused in her walk, and turning to her husband, said,

“My dear,” (and when Mrs. Hazleton said “my dear,” it was no idle word,) “I think you misjudge my motives entirely for what I have said. It is only for the good of your dear niece, for of course she must be very dear to you, and no doubt she is a very sweet girl, that I have raised any objections to her becoming a member of our happy family—no doubt, my love, she would prove a great acquisition—but—hem—but I think I have heard you say your sister, our sister Churchill, was in rather limited circumstances, and has been obliged to use great economy in bringing up her family. Now I ask you, my dear, if—if—we should not be doing wrong, very wrong, to vitiate the simple, happy tastes of Alice, and render dull and uncongenial the home of contentment in which she has ever so peacefully dwelt? This surely would be the case were we to introduce her into the gay world. So perfectly unsophisticated as she is, she would the more easily be led astray by the frivolities of fashionable life. Would it not be better for her, then, better for her dear mother, that this visit should not take place?”

“No, I tell you no!—she shall come, she shall go everywhere, she shall see every thing the city has to boast.”

“That can easily be done, love, in a few days,” replied the plausible lady. “Some pleasant morning you can go with her to the Museum, and Girard College, and the Water-Works. When I spoke of her going out, I meant to parties?—”

“And I mean to parties, and to theatres, and concerts, and?—”

“You are absurd, Mr. Hazleton!”

“Go on!”

“You have no regard for my feelings!”

“Go on.”

“You would willingly mortify me, and embarrass my sweet Julia, by linking her in companionship with this uncultivated hoyden!”

“Go on.”

“And also ruin the girl!”

“What next?”

“No, let me tell you, Mr. Hazleton, it must not, shall not be. Julia shall not be put to the blush continually for the solecisms this niece of yours will commit upon the rules of etiquette!”

“Little dear!”

“And, and—and, Mr. Hazleton—Lord, I wish I had never married!” and Mrs. Hazleton burst into tears.

Mr. Hazleton walked out.

——