The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1890-11-02
A MATRIMONIAL LESSON

From London Truth.
Eyes, old fellow, ought to be a happy man."
said Frank Cooley to his bosom friend Jack
Spiggot, as they sat chatting together in the
smoking-room of the Mistletoe Club. "I'ye got
just what wanted-a wife to look after my in
terests, and to be a sort of gentle check upon
my propensity to make money fly; and I'm set
tied down, and have no cares and anxieties
worth making bother about''
81 suppose she does perform those duties sat-
isfactorily?" said Jack Spiggot, in rather
meaning tone, which his friend was not slow to
note.
"Rather I'd always heard that no man
could marry and keep up a position on nine
hundred year. Fellows had told me all sorts
of yarns about what women want, and what
they must and will have; so l went to work
carefully, and, after long look about, found
my pearl of great price, and so far as I've
gone she's been rather cheap jewell
"Glad to hear it," remarked Mr.. Spiggot
"She certainly dresses as well as any woman 1
know, and I'm not talking blarney when tell
you that your little Thursday dinners are the
most complete affairs of their kind in town
Mind, I'm going to respond for young Francis
at the front, and the old Cellini bowl shall go
with my blessing"
'All right You're good fellow, Jack, and
appreciate it. By the way, the missIs is hot on
fancy dress ball for some time next month,
and l rely on you to bring some good men,
none of your stuffed door-deckers, but fellows
who can dance, and anybody else you like"
Whatever Jack Spiggot thought of the sort of
economy which considered the giving of fancy
dress ball, among other entertainments COM
patible with the position Of young married
,la.,
said nothing, and an irrepressible elevation of
his eyebrows was so slight that his friend did
not notice it.
Frank Cooley had spoken the truth when he
said that in his search for wife he had gone to
work carefully and when it was announced
that Emily, fifth daughter of the Reverend Job
Farthing, had been lucky enough to win the
affection of the handsome, well-to-do young
London barrister it was agreed on all sides that
the match was an excellent one. The young
lady had received the very best training for the
duties of frugal housewife, in that school of
adversely which too often turks behind the
picturesque walls of our English rural rectories
and vicarages, and she might deem herself
especially lucky, inasmuch as her four elder
sisters being still unmarried, she had been re-
garded as forlorn hope, with dreary future
before her of unbroken devotion to parochial
and domestic duties.
But notions of economy and frugaity differ
very widely, and Mrs. Cooley soon discovered
that the rigid parsmony and cheeseparing of an
overcrowded country rectory was one thing and
the frugality Of Kensngton home owned by a
young man who loved the edelights and comforts
and luxuries of life was very much another
thing. So the usual result came about, and the
young woman, agreeably disappointed that for
the tight curb she had expected was substituted
an easy bearing-rein took the bit between her
teeth in all the eXuberance and gayety of a
newly-released prisoner, until it became a fire.
quent subject of wonder among the gossiping
neighbors how on earth the Cooleys managed to
cut such dash as they did upon an income the
dimensions of which were perfectly we'll known.
So matters went on for M re than year, and
easy-going, good-natured Frank Cooley did not
bother himself about what currents and rocks
and shoals there might be under the waters of
his life so long as the waves ran with toerabe
smoothness and his household bark sailed brayely
on. Now and then, indeed, it occurred to him
that the intervals between his Emily's applica-
tions for checks rather brief but he ascribed
his temporary establishment to his ignorance OF
what was right and, moreover, Francis James
had been recently added to the family circle
wants and the purchase of innumerable uncon-
sidered trifes which soon represented toerably
solid incubus The Thursday dinners came of
regularly, however, with great ecldt; some one
as a rule dropped in to the ordinary daily repast
while Emily, being alone all day OF course, had
invariably guest to lunch; in addition, they
went out a good DEAL and Emily, not being
beauty enough to pass muster unadorned, re-
quired the setoff of good dressing, so that boxes
from the milliner or the bonnetmaker or the fur
rier arrived with tolcrable frequency.
And all this was done on nine hundred year
Stay-was it
Jack Spiggot, being an old schoolfelow and
college friend OF Franks, enjoyed the privilege
of speaking to the latter with the freedom of a
brother. He was senior to Frank by a few years
was also barrister by profession, although II
went no further; lived in comfortable chambers
in Jermyn street; had Travelled much and seen a
great deal of the world, and was therefore re-
garded as an oracle by the young Benedick,