"Hush! don't, please, dear," said Jared, with a pained look; and he laid his hand gently upon his wife's lips, when, smoothing her forehead, she exclaimed-- "Well, I won't then; but it does make me angry when I think of his money, and then of how poor we are, while somehow the poorer we get, the more tiresome the children grow. You've no conception how cross they are at times." "Haven't I?" said Jared, drily. "No," said Mrs Jared, impetuously; "how can you have?" "Did you wash the little ones this morning, my dear?" said Jared. "Wash them! Why, of course; at least Patty did, the same as usual." "Notice anything peculiar between their shoulders, either of you--any strange sprouting growth?" "Goodness, gracious! no," exclaimed Mrs Pellet, with a shudder. "Why, what do you mean? Surely there's no dreadful infectious thing about for which they are sickening? Surely Patty has brought home nothing from that dreadful place of Wragg's? What do you mean?" "Oh! nothing," said Jared, coolly; "only you seemed under the impression that the little ones were, or ought to be, angels, and I was anxious to hear of the advent of sprouting wings." "Stuff!" ejaculated Mrs Jared; and then, directly after, "just look here at Totty's boots." "Well, they are on the go," said Jared, turning the little leather understandings in his hands. "On the go!" said his wife; "why they're quite gone. It does seem such a thing when he's rolling in riches!" "Who? Totty?" said Jared, innocently. "Stuff!" said Mrs Jared, in her impetuous way. "Why, Richard, to be sure. He could buy oceans of boots, and never feel the loss." "Very true," said Jared, without pausing to think what number of pairs would form oceans. "But then, my dear, he'd have no Tottys to put in them." "And a good thing, too," said Mrs Jared, "seeing what an expense they are." "I don't know that, my dear," said Jared, softly. "They are an expense certainly, and it does seem hard upon us; but I don't know, after all, but what ours is the happier home." "The man came for the poor-rate to-day," said Mrs Jared, melting, but still frigid. "That's nothing new, my dear," said Jared; "he's always coming. Our little ones are healthy and strong and happy." "Have you thought about the rent being nearly due?" said Mrs Jared, who would not give in yet. "Yes," said Jared; "I have thought about it, for I never get a chance of forgetting it, my dear. It always seems to me that there are eight quarters in poor-people's years. But, as I was saying about the children, they are happy and merry, and the doctor comes seldom--that is," he said, with a comical look, "with exceptions, my dear--with exceptions." Mrs Jared tried to knit her brows and frown, but she could not, for the corner of a smile would peep out at one angle of her mouth; and, somehow or other, as they sat alone by the fire that night, Jared's arm crept round his wife's waist, and her head went down upon his shoulder.