It was now spring, and Mrs. Short had indicated to her husband the propriety of taking another house and “moving.” The poor man—who entertained the keenest sense of his anti-packing deficiencies—was aghast at the bare idea. It was some time before he could recover the power of speech. When he did, the first use he made of it was to remonstrate. “But, my dearest Julia, why should we move? Are we not so comfortable and happy here? We have such a nice garden, you know, and then we have just had the Croton put in, and the door-bell mended, and the blowers to all the grates painted black—why does my paragon wish to move?” “Why? Why, because, because—I’m sure, Mr. Short, you’re very—because, doesn’t every body move? Besides, I’m determined I wont live stuck away in this vulgar part of the town any longer. I declare I’m quite ashamed to tell any body where I live—No. — Madison Street. Nobody lives west of Broadway.” “Now, my dear angel—” “Never mind your nonsense—you can save all that, Mr. Short, for little Miss Prim.” [_Mem._ Ladies fond of flirting are always particularly jealous of their husbands.] “My dear Julia, what do you mean about Miss Prim? I never spoke to her but twice in my life.” “I don’t care—she’s a minx—and you don’t love me.” “Be calm! I do love you—I swear it by every thing I hold dear—by my child—our child, Julia! by my—by his—cradle!” “You may go to sea in your stupid old cradle, if you like, and the baby too. I was a fool for ever having either of you.” Mr. Short was thunderstruck. Such a triple-armed denunciation from the lips of that wife upon whom his very soul doted, was too much—it was annihilation. She boasted that she cared nothing for him—that was dreadful, but he felt that, were it alone, the blow could have been borne. She declared her indifference for his child, his darling, in whose sweet face he was fain to trace, day after day, the mingling beauties of mother and father, softened and purified by the light of infancy. This was awful! But, worse than this, than these, than all—she had actually abused his cradle! she had called it “that stupid old cradle!” Horror! At first he was too overwhelmed to act, or scarcely to think; while the lady kept pinning and unpinning a splendid lace _berta_ around her still more splendid shoulders, and humming a bar of Benedetti’s _Tu che a Dio spiegasti l’ali_. At length Mr. Short determined to be indignant, and assert the supremacy of outraged manhood. So, swallowing a tremendous mouthful of air, and putting his hands ominously into his trowsers’ pockets, he began, “Mrs. Short—” But at the instant her name was uttered, the magnificent creature, throwing aside the slight covering of her beautiful neck, as if by an impulse of spontaneous grace, turned round in a majestic attitude and fixed her eyes, whose fathomless fountains gleamed mysteriously beneath their willowy lids, full upon him.