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“Yes, and this open fire makes such a dust; and this carpet is one that shows every speck of dust; it keeps one always on the watch.”

“I wonder why papa never had a study to himself; I’m sure I should think he would like it better than sitting here among us all. Now there’s the great south-room off the dining-room; if he would only move his things there, and have his open fire, we could then close up the fireplace, and put lounges in the recesses, and mamma could have her things in the nursery,—and then we should have a parlor fit to be seen.”

I overheard all this, though I pretended not to,—the little busy chits supposing me entirely buried in the recesses of a German book over which I was poring.

There are certain crises in a man’s life when the female element in his household asserts itself in dominant forms that seem to threaten to overwhelm him. The fair creatures, who in most matters have depended on his judgment, evidently look upon him at these seasons as only a forlorn, incapable male creature, to be cajoled and flattered and persuaded out of his native blindness and absurdity into the fairy-land of their wishes.