Year: 1877

brisk air, as the cOnNeTSdIlOu wal LlCu
ND and the reserve was thawed away.


"How delightful" exclaimed the
pretty tea-dispenser, slyly putting some
Jumps of sugar in the Captains saucer
in place of those he had uncOnscious!y
eaten. "But what do you want OF
them?-to point the moral Or adorn the
tale?n


"Both," replied the Captain, with a
smile and bow that brought into
Mary's face a look which made it the
most charming interrogation point ne
had ever seen. 81 want to start
them right and keep them right.
But married folks are such un-
reasonable creatures" he continued
"we take each other for better or worse,
and then lament or rebel because it
isn't all better We don't half OF US
respect other peoples individuality,
simply because we have married them,
Suppose after the first month of the
years honeymoon with my Mary, when
/ could manage to look at the dear girl
without kissing her-or wanting to!-l
had said:


"'Mary, my darling, | observe that
your eyes are darker at some times than
at others. If you love me, do try to
maintain more uniformity. And your
nose, my jewel, has a little tendency
the very slightest-upward. l love you
to distraction just as it is, but if you
could only straighten it out tritle you
don't know what an improvement it
would be-


Absurd, you say. And yet have
known of talk not less so. Some peo-
pie never seem to comprehend that cold
temperaments can not be always warm
that moods can not be kept on one level,
like the sea; but ebb and flow like its
tides: that tastes inherited from a
mother, and tendencies from grand
father, can't be made to conform, in a
day or year, to some other mother
or grandfather'S tendencies and ways.
The iron bedstead is bad bit of furni-
ture for the marriage chamber!n said
the Captain, with an energetic thump
on the table that made the dishes rattle.


Robert had followed the Captain s
earnest discourse with q puzzled look
at first, and then q serious one, which
in turn gave way to something very like
a sunrise from behind lOw-lying clouds,
Mary's womanly intuitions, swifter than
any clumsy process which VIC men know
as "thought," flew to the end of the
speakers hOmily before his tongue
reached it, and she saw the dear old
souls fatherly purpose as plainly as
though he had set them on stools and
read them lecture.


The Captain "ate and RAM that
evening, after a goodnight adieu more
than usually tender and kind. He
wouldn't whip boy and stay to watch
him smart, nor plant a good seed and
then stand on it so that it could not
sprout. His genius for going at the
right time was equal to his talent fol-
coming-gifts unfortunately not always
found together.


When he was gone there was do.
mestic scene" quite different from
what the little cottage had recently
witnessed. Robert sat down in the bic
rocker, before the open CRATE, and
drawing his wondering wife into his
lap, pillowed her bright head in its
Gown place" on his shoulder. He
kissed her hair, and brow, and eyes
her warm cheeks and waiting lips
more tenderly than before, and said
in a voice low with emotion:


"I've been all wrong, dearie. For
give me. I'll throw the iron bedstead
out of the window, and not try to stretch
you out or cut you off any more. | love
you, want you, and | need you just as
you are"


Mary was true woman, and so it ism t
necessary to report what she said. But
she said it so eloquently, and illustrated
it in such ways, that Robert began to
wonder if there were not compensa-
ton enough to pay for having started
wrong.


They sent for the Captain to tea the
very next Sabbath, and as he read be-
tween the lines of the impulsive and af-
fectiOnate note he chuckled to himself,
with a glad moisture in his eyes:


"Ah ha! Barometer way up! Clear
ing weather! South winds, scented
with roses. Thermometer at 80 deg.
again. Well, well. Bless the Lord
This is what comes of having an Old
Prob. that knows his business


When the Captain entered Woodbine
Cottage in the peaceful hours of the
early Sabbath evening, he saw the old
love-light in the welcoming faces of his
happy friends before they could run to
greet him. AS Robert took his hands
in his own, Mary put her arms around
them both, and pressed the lips into
which the dimpled corners had returned
against the Captains bronzed cheek, in
kisses $50 close and kind" " that the old
gray-beard felt the unaccustomed thrill
l IN