banished from civil society, and condemned to herd, for ever after, with baboons.

We pray you, reader, to pardon this long introduction to a short history, and we intreat you to believe, if you do not already know by experience-which we trust you do not-that half an hour's idle tittle tattle, not to say malicious scandal, about the affairs of home, may destroy conjugal confidence, and impair domestic happiness for numerous years, and most wofully derange the beautiful but delicate machinery of family economy. And now to our tale :—

In a town of something under five thousand inhabitants, lived Mr. Edward Lennox. He was a young tradesman, with a young wife; and not being overburdened with capital, he was glad of an opportunity which offered, to receive into his family, for a fair consideration, a far distant female cousin, as a lodger.

This would have been a pleasant enough arrangement, but for one thing, which turned the scale another way. Miss Chatterton had numerous acquaintances in the town, and she had also a tongue.

Mr. Lennox was a timid man, nervous and excit. able. He was also subject to periodical bilious attacks, which had, as is common enough in such cases, a depressing influence on his spirits, and caused him to look, for the time being, on the dark side of his affairs, rather than on the bright.

Mary Lennox, the young wife, was a lively little body, generally good tempered, but somewhat hasty; somewhat inclined to extremes also: so that, while sometimes you would have supposed her to be the happiest woman on the face of the earth, at another time she would seem the most wretched. Happily, these gloomy fits, which were merely little flaws in her temper, did not last long, nor were they of frequent occurrence.

It happened one summer evening, that Mr. Lennox, having been all day absent from home on business, returned sadly wearied and out of sorts. It happened also, that on that same evening, his young wife was

in one of her gayest moods. It happened, too, that Miss Chatterton, the friend and lodger, had that afternoon been planning a jaunt to Ashwell Park, to come off' the following day; and in her party she had included, as a matter of course, Mr. and Mrs. Lennox. She was in full consultation with the lastmentioned, concerning the mode of conveyance and the necessary provisions for a pic-nic in the open park, when the young husband entered his parlour.

'Here you are, just in time,' said Mary Lennox, as soon as Edward's footstep was heard. She did not wait to look at his countenance, or she might have been warned-had she been wise, at least.

'Just in time for what, dear ?' he asked gloomily 'just in time for tea, I hope; or should have hoped,' he added, if there were any signs of it, which there are not. Just in time for what ?'

Just in time to settle about how we shall go to Ashwell Park to-morrow; but what is the matter with you? Are you not well ?'

'What are you going to Ashwell Park for ?' asked Mr. Lennox, without replying to his wife's question. 'How can you ask such a silly question, Ned?' said Mrs. Lennox: for a holiday, to be sure. The Deans are going to be of the party, and the Wyatts, and the Conways; and all we want is to get vans, or wagons, or flies, or

'I wish you would get the tea, Mary, and have done with this nonsense about vans and flies.'

'Nonsense!' muttered Miss Chatterton to herself, indignantly.

Polly put the kettle on,
And all sit down to tea'-

sang Mrs. Lennox, very provokingly.

At least it provoked Mr. Lennox very much. But the young wife would not see it.

'You sha'n't have your tea, Ned,' she continued playfully, 'till you have promised to go and see after the vans and flies afterwards.'

"Then I sha'n't have it at all; for I'm not going to do anything of the sort. I have something else to do to-morrow than to go junketing to Ashwell Park, or anywhere else; and so have you, I should think.'

'Junketing!' again muttered Miss Chatterton, with a toss of the head, 'Junketing, indeed!'

"You don't mean to say that you will not go with us, Edward?' said Mrs. Lennox.

'I do mean to say that I am not going to Ashwell Park to-morrow: and that I request you not to think of going,' replied the husband.

Poor Mary burst into tears. It is very ill-natured of you, Edward; but it always is so; when I wish anything, you are sure to oppose it. It is being a tyrant.'

'Very well, then, I am a tyrant, I suppose,' he said, so that matter is settled; and, now, am I to have my tea or not? Because, if I am not to have it at home, I will go and get it somewhere else.'

At this point, Miss Chatterton thought it wise to leave the room; and Mrs. Lennox very sorrowfully set about doing what it would have been better for her to have done at first. Her husband, as we have said, was very weary; he had had a day of annoyances in his business; he had a grievous bilious headache, for which his most effectual remedy was generally a powerful cup of tea; moreover, he had not dined, and was almost faint with fasting.

If Mary's little head had not been full of Ashwell Park, pic-nics, vans, wagons, and flies, she would have been spared the exhibition of her husband's impatience. But now she had wrought him into a fit of obduracy, and herself into one of mortification and opposition.

It is a great deal too bad of you, Edward, to treat me in this shameful manner,' remonstrated the sobbing young wife, as she poured out her husband's tea. 'If you must insult me, you might as well have the decency to do it when I am alone, and not before Miss Chatterton. It is too bad. If you are not well,

you have no business to degrade me in this way-you have not.'

'Degrade!' repeated Mr. Lennox, with bitterness; 'it will be well if we are not both of us degraded in another sort of way, before the month is out.'

'Yes, that's as you always talk, when you have one of these fits upon you. You only waste breath; for I don't heed what you say.'

'Very well, Mary, do as you like. I can only tell you that I am likely to be two hundred pounds short at the end of this month, and that I know no more than a child where to get it.'

'I cannot help that,' said Mrs. Lennox, still sullenly; and if it is so, that's no reason why you should behave so to me.'

'I have something else to say, too,' continued Mr. Lennox; 'there's that bill of Donkin's for fifty pounds, returned dishonoured; and I am likely to lose it all, for anything I can tell.'

'What did you take it for? What business had you with his bills? It is all your own fault.'

'You don't know anything about it, Mary; it is no fault of mine. I was obliged to have to do with but the end of it will be what I tell you. Then there is another thing-'

it;

There, for goodness' sake, don't tell me about any more things.'

'I must tell you, Mary, for this is the worst of all; and I say, really and truly, I don't know what to do. Look at that!' And he put into the hands of his wife a slip of paper covered with formal writing, intermingled with printing, in which the names of John Doe and Richard Roe were prominent.

'Well, what is that?' asked the young wife.

'What is it? Why the copy of a writ I was served with to-day, that's all.'

Mrs. Lennox had heard of these formidable weapons of the law, and her incredulity and carelessness began to change into real alarm.

'O dear, what is it all about, Edward? Why did you not tell me about this before?

'How could I tell you of it before, when you were bothering me about those stupid vans; and Miss Chatterton by, too? As to what it is about, I don't know that either, for I-but it does not signify talking; all I know is, that I must start to London by to-night's mail, and do what I can to set things straight they are crooked enough now.'

Mary thought so too; and if it could be said of her, as one has said of her sex,—

'O, woman! in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,'

so also was it true of her

'But when affliction clouds our brow,

A ministering angel thou.'

She forgot her vexation, and set about, in real earnest, to comfort and encourage her husband.

After all, there was nothing very dreadful in his affairs; and at another time he would have said so: but now he was bilious, and everything looked black to him. It was true that that month's payments were heavy, but the next were light, and a week or two would set his balances straight. It was true that a dishonoured bill had been returned to him: but it was also true, as it turned out afterwards, that the money had been duly paid, but by some odd mistake, into the wrong bank. The next morning, that was set to rights. It was true that a copy of a writ had been served upon Mr. Lennox, much to his annoyance; but this was only the spiteful act of a foolish creditor whom he had offended; and it was but for a small amount, comparatively. Edward Lennox need not have taken the trouble of a journey to London about it; but in the mood in which that day found him, he had lost the power, almost, of calm thought and action,