There is a most amusing article in this week's _Balance_ on the Scold and her place in mediæval life. The writer had seen a ducking-chair somewhere, and had been led by it to a series of reflections on the Scold and, what is perhaps more interesting, the Scold's husband. It is a topic on which we are very ill informed, and the fancy has a free field. What, he asked, was the husband doing while his wife was being corrected? Was he a spectator or an absentee? Was he proud--a kind of inverted hero--or was he ashamed? Had he not more probably a very lively sense of what was in store for him at night and was he not nerving himself for the fray in the inn parlour? The writer then went on to consider the homecoming of the Scold: wet through certainly, but was she penitent? Did she scold no more? Is any one ever cured? The home-coming of the husband, he suggested, would be later. And so forth. Meeting Mr. Dabney on the stairs, I mentioned the article and asked him who wrote it. He said it was written by a young fellow named Wynne--Frank Wynne. Isn't that odd? I knew Frank for an amusing embroiderer, but I never thought of him having so much humour as that. He and his wife being at Queen Anne's Gate to dinner, I congratulated him. "How did you know I wrote it?" he asked; and I told him about Mr. Dabney. "By the way," I added to Naomi, "that proves my prophecy. Don't you remember my saying that Mr. Dabney and I would find we had a common friend; and it turns out to be Frank." Frank, however, denied that he knew him: his connection with the paper was the result of correspondence, and so I said I would bring Mr. Dabney to Barton Street to tea and they should then meet. "But isn't he very fierce?" asked Mrs. Frank, thinking, I am sure, of the twins. "You must tame him," I said. She certainly tried. Never was there such a tea. Mrs. Frank must have lain awake half the night meditating upon the attack, for this was her first editor, and was she not a young journalist's wife? (Such a chance.) In her original scheme were hot cakes and cold, muffins and crumpets, brown bread and white, jam and marmalade; but she had a doubt and put it to Frank. "Isn't there a danger," she said, "that he may think we're too well off already?" Frank thought there might. So the muffins went and the other hot cakes and the marmalade. "And what about my dress?" she said. "I should like to wear the red one, but it does look a little bit expensive." "It's very beautiful," said Frank. "Don't you like the purple one, then?" she asked anxiously. "Of course I do: they're both beautiful." "Well, which shall it be?" "Why not the red dress and leave off all your rings but the wedding ring?" And so did these Machiavellian babes arrange it.