Though the host of the Nutmeg-Grater had a lively regard for his good-wife, it was of the old patronising kind, and she amused him mightily. Nothing would have astonished him so much, as to have known for certain from any third party, that it was she who managed the whole house, and made him, by her plain straightforward thrift, good-humour, honesty, and industry, a thriving man. So easy it is, in any degree of life (as the world very often finds it), to take those cheerful natures that never assert their merit, at their own modest valuation; and to conceive a flippant liking of people for their outward oddities and eccentricities, whose innate worth, if we would look so far, might make us blush in the comparison! It was comfortable to Mr. Britain, to think of his own condescension in having married Clemency. She was a perpetual testimony to him of the goodness of his heart, and the kindness of his disposition; and he felt that her being an excellent wife was an illustration of the old precept that virtue is its own reward. He had finished wafering up the bill, and had locked the vouchers for her day’s proceedings in the cupboard—chuckling all the time, over her capacity for business—when, returning with the news that the two Master Britains were playing in the coach-house under the superintendence of one Betsey, and that little Clem was sleeping ‘like a picture,’ she sat down to tea, which had awaited her arrival, on a little table. It was a very neat little bar, with the usual display of bottles and glasses; a sedate clock, right to the minute (it was half-past five); everything in its place, and everything furbished and polished up to the very utmost. ‘It’s the first time I’ve sat down quietly to-day, I declare,’ said Mrs. Britain, taking a long breath, as if she had sat down for the night; but getting up again immediately to hand her husband his tea, and cut him his bread-and-butter; ‘how that bill does set me thinking of old times!’ ‘Ah!’ said Mr. Britain, handling his saucer like an oyster, and disposing of its contents on the same principle. ‘That same Mr. Michael Warden,’ said Clemency, shaking her head at the notice of sale, ‘lost me my old place.’ ‘And got you your husband,’ said Mr. Britain. ‘Well! So he did,’ retorted Clemency, ‘and many thanks to him.’ ‘Man’s the creature of habit,’ said Mr. Britain, surveying her, over his saucer. ‘I had somehow got used to you, Clem; and I found I shouldn’t be able to get on without you. So we went and got made man and wife. Ha! ha! We! Who’d have thought it!’ ‘Who indeed!’ cried Clemency. ‘It was very good of you, Ben.’ ‘No, no, no,’ replied Mr. Britain, with an air of self-denial. ‘Nothing worth mentioning.’