In the house of the working man or respectable tradesman⁠—where the wife is allowed to turn her back upon her husband, while pursuing her household avocations⁠—there are at least intervals of quiet, when the wife is neither seen nor heard, except for the humming sound of the continuous peace-cry; but in the homes of the upper classes there is too often no peace. There the voluble mouth and bright penetrating eye are ever directed towards the master of the household; and light itself is not more persistent than the stream of feminine discourse. The tact and skill which suffice to avert a woman’s sting are unequal to the task of stopping a woman’s mouth; and as the wife has absolutely nothing to say, and absolutely no constraint of wit, sense, or conscience to prevent her from saying it, not a few cynics have been found to aver that they prefer the danger of the death-dealing but inaudible sting to the safe sonorousness of a woman’s other end.