"Now, Caudle, dear, do let us talk comfortably. After all, love, there's a good many folks who, I daresay, don't get on half so well as we've done. We've both our little tempers, perhaps; but you ARE aggravating; you must own that, Caudle. Well, never mind; we won't talk of it; I won't scold you now. We'll talk of next Sunday, love. We never have kept our wedding-day, and I think it would be a nice day to have our friends. What do you say? "THEY'D THINK IT HYPOCRISY? "No hypocrisy at all. I'm sure I try to be comfortable; and if ever man was happy, you ought to be. No, Caudle, no; it isn't nonsense to keep wedding-days; it isn't a deception on the world; and if it is, how many people do it! I'm sure it's only a proper compliment that a man owes to his wife. Look at the Winkles--don't they give a dinner every year? Well, I know, and if they do fight a little in the course of the twelvemonth, that's nothing to do with it. They keep their wedding-day, and their acquaintance have nothing to do with anything else. "As I say, Caudle, it's only a proper compliment that a man owes to his wife to keep his wedding-day. It's as much as to say to the whole world--'There! if I had to marry again, my blessed wife's the only woman I'd choose!' Well! I see nothing to groan at, Mr. Caudle--no, nor to sigh at either; but I know what you mean: I'm sure, what would have become of you if you hadn't married as you have done--why, you'd have been a lost creature! I know it; I know your habits, Caudle; and--I don't like to say it, but you'd have been little better than a ragamuffin. Nice scrapes you'd have got into, I know, if you hadn't had me for a wife. The trouble I've had to keep you respectable--and what's my thanks? Ha! I only wish you'd had some women! "But we won't quarrel, Caudle. No; you don't mean anything, I know. We'll have this little dinner, eh? Just a few friends? Now don't say you don't care--that isn't the way to speak to a wife; and especially the wife I've been to you, Caudle. Well, you agree to the dinner, eh? Now, don't grunt, Mr. Caudle, but speak out. You'll keep your wedding-day? What? "IF I LET YOU GO TO SLEEP? "Ha! that's unmanly, Caudle. Can't you say 'Yes,' without anything else? I say--can't you say 'Yes'? There, bless you! I knew you would. "And now, Caudle, what shall we have for dinner? No--we won't talk of it to-morrow; we'll talk of it now, and then it will be off my mind. I should like something particular--something out of the way-- just to show that we thought the day something. I should like--Mr. Caudle, you're not asleep? "WHAT DO I WANT? "Why, you know I want to settle about the dinner. "HAVE WHAT I LIKE? "No: as it's your fancy to keep the day, it's only right that I should try to please you. We never had one, Caudle; so what do you think of a haunch of venison? What do you say? "MUTTON WILL DO?