and had already grown tired of his wife, who nevertheless was, as all Arras knew, a perfect model of beauty and virtue. In ever-increasing irritation had poor Marion been an unsuspected participator in all this conversation--and who could blame a virtuous wife for feeling irritated--when all at once she saw her domestic sorrows made a butt for a laughing public. She took no heed of the polished verses and comical grimaces with which the conversation of the three actors was adorned, and which so delighted the audience. With a bitter anxiety, and forgetting all else, she now listened to the answer her husband was to give to her uncle. When, however, Adam drily explained to the audience that a pretty woman was not necessarily an amusing one, and that his Marion's mouth was better adapted for kisses than conversation, that nevertheless no one grew wiser by kissing, but, on the contrary, by witty conversation; and that he would present any one amongst them, who had ever heard his Marion give utterance to an observation at all bordering on the witty, the sum of two golden crowns; then the poor listener could no longer restrain herself. With one bound she was on the stage, and stood with glowing eyes and angry brow directly opposite to him who had so basely slandered her. "Are you not ashamed, Adam?" she cried in the midst of his harangue; "are you not ashamed to speak thus of your own wedded wife before all the town? Oh, if you had ever loved me, only a little, a little, that speech would never have passed your lips! And now tell me, have I deserved it from you? Have I ever caused you one hour's grief? Have I not done everything to please you? And now will you speak ill of me before all Arras?"