The next few conversations she had with her husband, who got better rapidly with the careful nursing he received, were after the same pattern--a little wrangle, with taunts and sneers on his side, and careless submission on hers, followed by a sort of tame reconciliation. Before long she had managed, by a firm refusal to do anything which she did not think good for him and a very gentle manner, to get the upper hand of the obstinate invalid; and, when Mrs. Stanley had a tussle with him on account of his unwillingness to have his wounds dressed or to take his medicine at the proper hours, she always went to Annie to get over the difficulty. Sometimes during a battle with the housekeeper he would say: “Well, send Annie, then, and perhaps I’ll have it done.” This flattering preference was received by its object with anything but gratitude. To be called up from her sleep in the middle of the night, or to be sent for in the course of a meal, because “Mr. Harold says he won’t take any slops, ma’am, unless you come and see that his beef-tea isn’t hot enough to scald his throat,” did not fill her with any pride in this rise in her husband’s esteem. At last, one night, when he was fairly on the road to convalescence, she flatly refused to go when Mrs. Stanley came to say Mr. Harold would not let her dress the wound on his shoulder, but wanted his wife to do it. “Tell him I say you can do it much better than I, Mrs. Stanley; and, if he won’t let you do it, he must wait till to-morrow morning,” said the undutiful wife sleepily, as she turned over and shut her eyes again. The next morning Harry, who was to go down-stairs for the first time that day, bounced over on his side away from her as soon as she entered his room and came up to the bedside. Annie walked softly toward the door; then the invalid, who had recovered much of the power of his lungs, roared: “Stop! Where are you going?” “I am going to breakfast,” said she, calmly. “Without even wishing me good-morning! After refusing point-blank just to step along the corridor in the night when I might have been dying! You’re a nice wife!” “Now, look here, Harry; I don’t pretend to do more than just my simple duty to you, and don’t for a moment set myself up for a model wife.” “I should think not indeed! Everybody would laugh if you did.” “Everybody would laugh, as you say, if I pretended to show any affection for a husband so selfish that he will break a night’s rest of a very good nurse--I have been that, remember--on the most trifling pretexts. I dare say you think it an honor to choose me instead of Mrs. Stanley to put on a poultice or arrange a bandage; but I assure you it is one I don’t appreciate. You are nearly well now, and the task I set myself of seeing you through your illness is over. My presence can only irritate you now, and I think of taking the hint you have often given me, and going to-day.”