His wife, Martha, was a plump, notable, quiet, pleasant-faced woman, aged about fifty-five, but very old-fashioned in looks and ideas. During the morning, when she assisted her servant girl, Mrs. Jones wore a calico short gown, a stuff petticoat, and a check-apron, with a close muslin cap--in the afternoon her costume was a calico long gown, a white linen apron, and a thinner muslin cap with brown ribbon; and on Sundays a silk gown, a clear muslin apron, and a still thinner and much larger cap trimmed with gray ribbon. Everything about them had an air of homely comfort, and they lived plainly and substantially. Peter brought home every morning on his arm an amply-filled market basket; but on Sundays their girl was always seen, before church time, carrying to the baker's a waiter containing a large dish that held a piece of meat mounted on a trivet with abundance of potatoes around and beneath, and also a huge pudding in a tin pan. Peter Jones, who proportioned all his expenses so as to keep an even balance, allowed himself and his wife to go once in the season to the theatre, and that was on the anniversary of their wedding, an event of which he informed his neighbours he had never found cause to repent. This custom had been commenced the first year of their marriage, and continued ever since; and as their plays were few and far between, they enjoyed them with all the zest of novices in the amusement. To them every actor was good, and every play was excellent; the last being generally considered the best. They were not sufficiently familiar with the drama to be fastidious in their taste; and happily for them, they were entirely ignorant of both the theory and practice of criticism. To them a visit to the theatre was a great event; and on the preceding afternoon the neighbours always observed symptoms of restlessness in Peter, and a manifest disinclination to settle himself to anything. Before going to bed, he regularly, on the eve of this important day, went round to the theatre to look at the bills that are displayed in the vestibule a night in advance; being too impatient to wait for the announcement in the morning papers. When the play-day actually came, he shut up his shop at noon, and they had an earlier and better dinner than usual. About three, Peter appeared in full dress with a ruffled shirt and white cravat, wandering up and down the pavement, going in and out at the front-door, singing, whistling, throwing up his stick and catching it, stopping every one he knew, to have a talk with them on theatricals, and trying every device to while away the intervening hours. At four, the tea-table was set, that they might get over the repast in good time, and, as Mrs. Jones said, "have it off their minds."