"But we can't afford it," I cried, with almost a groan. "Why, you have told me this very day that our expenses must be cut down, and now you want me to add to them by doing less work. But the work must be done. The children must be clothed, there is no end to the stitches to be taken for them, and your stockings must be mended-you make enormous holes in them! and you don't like it if you ever find a button wanting to a shirt or your supply of shirts getting low." "All you say may be very true," he returned, "but I am determined that you shall not be driven to desperation as you have been of late." By this time we had reached the house where his visit was to be made, and I had nothing to do but lean back and revolve all he had been saying, over and over again, and to see its reasonableness while I could not see what was so be done for my relief. Ah, I have often felt in moments of bitter grief at my impatience with my children, that perhaps God pitied more than He blamed me for it! And now my dear husband was doing the same! When Ernest had finished his visit we drove on again in silence. At last, I asked: "Do tell me, Ernest, if you worked out this problem all by yourself?" He smiled a little. "No, I did not. But I have had a patient for two or three years whose case has interested me a good deal, and for whom I finally prescribed just as I have done for you. The thing worked like a charm, and she is now physically and morally quite well. "I dare say her husband is a rich man," I said. "He is not as poor as your husband, at any rate," Ernest replied. "But rich or poor I am determined not to sit looking on while you exert yourself so far beyond your strength. Just think, dear, suppose for fifty or a hundred or two hundred dollars a year you could buy a sweet, cheerful, quiet tone of mind, would you hesitate one moment to do so? And you can do it if you will. You are not ill-tempered but quick-tempered; the irritability which annoys you so is a physical infirmity which will disappear the moment you cease to be goaded into it by that exacting mistress you have hitherto been to yourself." All this sounded very plausible while Ernest was talking, but the moment I got home I snatched up my work from mere force of habit. "I may as well finish this as it is begun," I said to myself, and the stitches flew from my needle like sparks of fire. Little Ernest came and begged for a story, but I put him off. Then Una wanted to sit in my lap, but I told her I was too busy. In the course of an hour the influence of the fresh air and Ernest's talk had nearly lost their power over me; my thread kept breaking, the children leaned on and tired me, the baby woke up and cried, and I got all out of patience. "Do go away, Ernest," I said, "and let mamma have a little peace. Don't you see how busy I am? Go and play with Una like a good boy." But he would not go, and kept teasing Una till she too, began to cry, and she and baby made a regular concert of it.