He DID, but was ashamed to say so, and only answered: “Well, I am sure it must be beautiful since you say so, and I shall be smarter than anyone in the whole village. ‘What a splendid coat!’ they will exclaim when they see me. But it is not everybody who has a wife as clever as mine.” Meanwhile the other wife was not idle. As soon as her husband entered she looked at him with such a look of terror that the poor man was quite frightened. “Why do you stare at me so? Is there anything the matter?” asked he. “Oh! go to bed at once,” she cried; “you must be very ill indeed to look like that!” The man was rather surprised at first, as he felt particularly well that evening; but the moment his wife spoke he became quite certain that he had something dreadful the matter with him, and grew quite pale. “I dare say it would be the best place for me,” he answered, trembling; and he suffered his wife to take him upstairs, and to help him off with his clothes. “If you sleep well during the might there MAY be a chance for you,” said she, shaking her head, as she tucked him up warmly; “but if not—” And of course the poor man never closed an eye till the sun rose. “How do you feel this morning?” asked the woman, coming in on tip-toe when her house-work was finished. “Oh, bad; very bad indeed,” answered he; “I have not slept for a moment. Can you think of nothing to make me better?” “I will try everything that is possible,” said the wife, who did not in the least wish her husband to die, but was determined to show that he was more foolish that the other man. “I will get some dried herbs and make you a drink, but I am very much afraid that it is too late. Why did you not tell me before?” “I thought perhaps the pain would go off in a day or two; and, besides, I did not want to make you unhappy,” answered the man, who was by this time quite sure he had been suffering tortures, and had borne them like a hero. “Of course, if I had had any idea how ill I really was, I should have spoken at once.” “Well, well, I will see what can be done,” said the wife, “but talking is not good for you. Lie still, and keep yourself warm.” All that day the man lay in bed, and whenever his wife entered the room and asked him, with a shake of the head, how he felt, he always replied that he was getting worse. At last, in the evening, she burst into tears, and when he inquired what was the matter, she sobbed out: “Oh, my poor, poor husband, are you really dead? I must go to-morrow and order your coffin.” Now, when the man heard this, a cold shiver ran through his body, and all at once he knew that he was as well as he had ever been in his life. “Oh, no, no!” he cried, “I feel quite recovered! Indeed, I think I shall go out to work.” “You will do no such thing,” replied his wife. “Just keep quite quiet, for before the sun rises you will be a dead man.”