There was a moment's disagreeable silence, during which Mr. and Mrs. Brier exchanged meaning glances across the table. Then he hastened to say, "Of course, then, they must be, though I never detected it. Wife, how came you to put them on the table? I should think twenty bushels ought to last a family of three persons quite a while, especially with all the new ones we have had." "Of course," she answered snappishly, "I didn't know it, or I wouldn't have used them. Thank goodness! though, I ain't so dainty as some I could mention. If there's anything I despise, it's a person that's so poor they can't but just exist, putting on style over folks that can buy and sell them." "Just hear that, now," said Mr. Brier, in a conciliatory tone, "you've got a sharp tongue in your head, Marthy; you don't let anybody put you in your place, and keep you there easy, without they get a piece of your mind. For my part, I like to see a woman independent." "It don't matter much to me, Brier, what you do like and what you don't," said his lady, with a toss of her head, "I'm boss of my own house, and no man shall dictate to me, not if I know it. You needn't sneak, like any miserable cur, nor put on that smirk to cover up your own acts, though I ain't afraid but what I can come out ahead, and fight my own battles, if you do show the white feather. Where would you be to-day, I'd like to know, if I'd let you gone on with that overgrown tribe of your'n? You know you'd never been worth a cent durin' the whole of your natural life!" "You're right there, Marthy," he answered again, meekly enough. "Do you know, Miss Graystone, that I'd never had this two thousand dollars, that I've managed to scrape together, if that smart, managing woman of mine hadn't scrimped and saved beyond everything you ever saw. 'Taint every man that's got a treasure like mine, I can tell you." And truly they had not, for it does not often fall to the lot of mortal man to find in one little, insignificant figure, dwarfish alike in soul and body, such a compound of selfishness, duplicity, meanness, and vulgarity, as was centered in the object of that gentleman's affection.