Tippington rather more stoutly than he had been speaking latterly; 'for it was a great exertion my father made to set me up in it, and it is a good business if ever there was one; and everybody did think it a great piece of luck for a young man like me to get it. And then it fell vacant just at the right moment, and he was able to buy it, good-will and all.'

'And it's myself that is sick to death of it, and of everything about it, and everybody connected with it,' cried Lettice with an espiegle glance and an air of pretty spite. 'O shop, shop! O luck, luck! O Donolly, Donolly! Don't let me hear any more about any of them. Give me a little respite just for half an hour-do, now. Sure, if you're a good man, you'll just steal for me one of those nice storybooks out of the SHOP. And you'll read me a bewitching story while I work at your slippers— your slippers, you know, Frank: it is for you I am embroidering them. And while we are so pleasantly employed, I shall find that married life's a little, just a little like what I used to imagine it long ago.'

As she uttered these words, she turned towards him with a coquettish smile and glance, and with saucy eyes full of gentleness and laughter; and she looked so pretty that there was nothing left for the young husband to do but to give her a kiss, and, fetching the nice story-book she had commanded, sit

down by her side in the chair which she despised, but which Mr. Donolly thought so comfortable, and read it aloud to her. And so employed, with a pretty young wife by his side, Frank forgot all his grievances.

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have said before, like one of the most comfortable couples imaginable-comfortable couple as far as their mutual relation was concerned, most certainly. After the first pleasant word or two had been exchanged, inevitable between married people who love each other when, having spent a few hours in company, they find themselves once more tête-àtête, Mr. Donolly fell into thought, and his knit brows and compressed lips showed plainly that his reflections were of rather a sombre character.

So serious, indeed, did he appear to be, that after a little silence his Mary said softly, 'Is there anything the matter, Brian?'

He quite started, his thought had been so deep,

and looked inquiringly into his wife's fair, pleasant face.

'Is there anything the matter?' cried he. 'Well, then, not very much, except that it occurs to me that for a sensible man our very good friend Frank Tippington is a most consummate ass.'

'O Brian! Mr. Tippington! you can't mean it! What do you mean?'

'I do mean it, my dear; and what I mean is, that no one but an ass would have married that senseless little bit of affectation and conceit-set her up with her fine airs and her marrying shops! Why, a shop

is a hundred times too good for her.

It would be no end of use to my lady to have a broom in one hand and a dust-pan in the other, and to turn housemaid for a couple of years, just to show her what being the wife of a good honest tradesman like my friend Frank, who keeps her like a lady, really is.'

'She is so extremely pretty,' began Mrs. Donolly in an apologetic manner, but her husband interrupted

her.

'She is. She is pretty enough, but it is not beauty we are talking about. Does a sensible man in our rank of life marry a pretty face? Serve him right, say I, to get such a wife as she is if he does. Why, look here, Mary,' continued he with honest warmth, 'your face is worth twenty of such a pretty piece of painted wax-work as that. It's your face has got

something in it; and yet it was not for your face that I married you, and I should scorn myself if it was.' Mrs. Donolly's hand that rested on her husband's arm gently pressed it.

'What was it for, dear?' she asked with a low, happy laugh.

'What was it for? I'll tell you, my lass, what it was for. It's not that I'm going to deny how the first time I ever set eyes on you, I liked your looks and your smiles, and got warm about the heart as I thought how you'd brighten up a man's home for him, and make his life beautiful. But it wasn't for that I married you; it was not. I watched you after I liked you, to see if you'd be a good wife. And it was for your care of the old father, and your pleasant answers to the cross brother, and your love for the little sisters-yes, and for your early rising and your light step about the house, and your bright sunny ways, that I married you. It was you had the gift of setting everything right that went wrong, and it was I that loved you for it; and I say, that tradesman is a fool who marries a wife for any other reasons than the likes of these.'

Yes, Brian Donolly, you are quite right, and you might have said that gentleman also.

'But you were in love with me, Brian, you know you were?' cried Mary, laughing and blushing and speaking in almost a reproachful voice.

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