The brother-in-law could no more dispense with her racy society, than with pungent sauces for his piscatory favorites. Instead of becoming angry when Ariana declared that she had seen too much of men at home ever to marry, he was heartily glad of a determination which insured the continuance under his roof of his merry antagonist. Never was married woman so wretched herself that she discouraged matrimony among her young relatives and friends. Scarcely were the Dormers seated at dinner, and the first outbreak of invectives against cook, waiter and market-woman at an end, than the meek Harriet remarked, with an attempt at the playfulness for which she was distinguished before broken to the hymenial yoke: “Ariana, you had better have the ham placed before you, that you may learn to carve, as I suspect from the visit which you received this morning that you will soon be at the head of your own table.” Mr. Dormer checked the grimace by which he was expressing disgust at the over-done mutton before him, and stared, but ventured not a question. “Never more mistaken in your life, sister. Mr. Dormer cannot spare me,” was Ariana’s laughing reply; “he would burst a blood-vessel in one of his fury-fits, if I were not here to soothe him.” “Am I such a tyrant then?” asked Mr. Dormer, in nearly as humble a tone as his wife would have used. “A very despot; but not worse at heart than most men. There is scarcely one who does not revenge himself for the rude world’s buffetings, by inflicting all sorts of petty annoyances upon those at home,” was the calm reply. “You will certainly be an old maid, Ariana,” remarked Mrs. Dormer, as she cast a furtive glance at the engrossing object of all her thoughts. “A consummation devoutly to be wished,” said Ariana, smiling at the fearful tone in which the remark was made. “I had rather be caged in a menagerie, than obliged from morning to night to listen to the growling of a human tiger.” “Mr. Atherton Burney is very mild, and only needs a gentle shepherdess to make him perfectly lamb-like,” said Mr. Dormer, with an attempt at sportiveness which reminded his sister of the fabled donkey emulating the lap-dog’s playfulness. “I never liked pastorals,” she began, but the time for joking was at an end. The servant, in handing Mr. Dormer a glass of water, spilled part of the contents upon his plate, and stood trembling at the angry rebuke which his carelessness had called forth. “Misnamed lords of creation,” thought Ariana for the hundredth time, as she saw what a trifle had disturbed her brother’s equanimity. There was a dead silence for a few moments, only broken by the clatter of knives and forks, and then Mr. Dormer, casting very much such a glance at his sister-in-law as a naughty boy would at his offended mamma, muttered—“the steamer is in to-day and the banks are breaking faster than ever.”