“Husband” gets up in the morning, and pays his _devoirs_ to the looking-glass; curls his fine head of hair; puts on an immaculate shirt bosom; ties an excruciating cravat; sprinkles his handkerchief with cologne; stows away a French roll, an egg, and a cup of coffee; gets into the omnibus, looks at the pretty girls, and makes love between the pauses of business during the forenoon _generally_. Wife must “hermetically seal” the windows and exclude all the fresh air, (because the baby had “the snuffles” in the night;) and sits gasping down to the table more dead than alive, to finish her breakfast. Tommy turns a cup of hot coffee down his bosom; Juliana has torn off the strings of her school bonnet; James “wants his geography covered;” Eliza can’t find her satchel; the butcher wants to know if she’d like a joint of mutton; the milkman would like his money; the iceman wants to speak to her “just a minute;” the baby swallows a bean; husband sends the boy home from the store to say _his partner_ will dine with him; the cook leaves “all flying,” to go to her “sister’s dead baby’s wake,” and husband’s thin coat must be ironed before noon. “_Sunshine and young mothers!_” Where’s my smelling bottle? UNCLE BEN’S ATTACK OF SPRING FEVER, AND HOW HE GOT CURED. “It is not possible that you have been insane enough to go to housekeeping in the country, for the summer? Oh, you ought to hear my experience,” and Uncle Ben wiped the perspiration from his forehead, at the very thought. Yes, I tried it once, with city habits and a city wife: got rabid with the dog days, and nothing could cure me but a nibble of green grass. There was Susan, you know, who never was off a brick pavement in her life, and didn’t know the difference between a cheese and a grindstone. Well, we ripped up our carpets, and tore down our curtains, and packed up our crockery, and nailed down our pictures, and eat dust for a week, and then we emigrated to Daisy Ville. Could I throw up a window or fasten back a blind in that house, without sacrificing my suspenders and waistband button? No, sir! Were not the walls full of Red Rovers? Didn’t the doors fly open at every wind gust? Didn’t the roof leak like the mischief? Was not the chimney leased to a pack of swallows? Was not the well a half a mile from the house?