"There, Amos Owen," put in the aforementioned Susan, "don't try to lay your stinginess on my shoulders, for, goodness knows, they have burden enough already. And that ain't so, either, you know as well as I do that you're only saying it to be contrary." "Well, have it so," he said, crossly, and Clemence, to turn the subject, asked if they were going to attend morning service on the coming Sabbath. "Not I," said Mr. Owen, "it's asking altogether too much of a hard working man like me to get up and start off as regular as the Sunday comes, without any rest whatever. I don't feel called upon to do it, for one. Wife, here, can answer for herself." "Why don't you say at once that she has not a decent dress to go in, and you prefer to have her stay home and look after the children, while you sleep away your time. I've no patience with you, Amos." "So you are boarding at Owen's?" said Mrs. Swan, when Clemence stopped for little Ruth, on her way to meeting. "Yes," said Clemence, "they are an odd couple." "They are all of that, and more," she replied with a smile. "I should not think you would fancy staying there much, she has the name of being a miserable housekeeper, and a shiftless sort of body at the best." "Why," said the young teacher, generously, "I have not found her so. I think she is one of the most industrious women in the place." "Then," said Mrs. Swan, looking with an air of pride around her own neat little dwelling, "how is it she always has such a dirty looking house, that you can't bear to eat a mouthful in it, and those ill-kempt, noisy children, to say nothing of her own slovenly appearance?" "Because," returned Clemence, in her defence, "she has more work put upon her than two women ought to do, and with so much expected of her, it is not to be wondered at that she sometimes fails to achieve everything." "But what a figure the woman does make of herself," said Mrs. Swan, smoothing her own satin hair. "She spoils everything in the making up. I never saw her in a well made garment, nor her children, either." "I grant," conceded Clemence, "that she has no taste, but she has little time for its indulgence, so, perhaps, she is as well off without it. The poor woman is a perfect drudge. She never has a pitying word, or a sympathetic look, even from her husband. He seems to think that she is only filling her appropriate sphere. Yet, I do not think he means to be cruel. He, works hard himself, and expects every one around him to do the same." "I'll tell you what I think about it," said Mrs. Swan, energetically, "she never was the wife for him. With a woman who had the least ambition, their home would present a far different aspect. As it is, you know, Miss Graystone, it _does_ look enough to disgust a neat man like him. No one can say, either, but what he furnishes liberally everything necessary for the household, and she is as close and saving as he is, for all she denies it."