don’t dine at all—and I am afraid to say how long we waited for breakfast—and then the water didn’t boil. I don’t mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable.”
“Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife!” cried Dora.
“Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that!”
“You said, I wasn’t comfortable!” cried Dora.
“I said the housekeeping was not comfortable!”
“It’s exactly the same thing!” cried Dora. And she evidently thought so, for she wept most grievously.
I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife, and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against the door. I sat down again, and said:
“I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. I am only trying to show you, my dear, that you must—you really must” (I was resolved not to give this up)—“accustom yourself to look after Mary Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and me.”
“I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches,” sobbed Dora. “When you know that the other day, when you said you would like a little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it, to surprise you.”
“And it was very kind of you, my own darling,” said I. “I felt it so much that I wouldn’t on any account have even mentioned that you bought a salmon—which was too much for two. Or that it cost one pound six—which was more than we can afford.”
“You enjoyed it very much,” sobbed Dora. “And you said I was a mouse.”