Now, my dear, was not this a high compliment to him? Ought he not to have taken it as such? Especially as I looked grave, and dropt him a very fine courtesy. But either his conscience or his ill-nature, (perhaps you'll say both,) made him take it as a reflection, [True as you are alive, Harriet!] He bit his lip. Jenny, begone, said he--Jenny, don't go, said I--Jenny knew not which to obey. Upon my word, Harriet, I began to think the man would have cuffed me.--And while he was in his airs of mock-majesty, I stept to the door, and whipt down to my company. As married people are not to expose themselves to their friends, (who I once heard you sagely remark, would remember disagreeable things, when the honest pair had forgotten them,) I was determined to be prudent. You would have been charmed with me, my dear, for my discretion. I will cheat by-standers, thought I; I will make my Lord and Lady L----, Dr. Bartlett, and Emily, whom I had before set in at cards, think we are egregiously happy--And down I sat, intending, with a lamb-like peaceableness, to make observations on the play. But soon after, in whipt my indiscreet lord, his colour heightened, his features working: and though I cautioned him not to expose himself, yet he assumed airs that were the occasion, as you shall hear, of frightening away my company. He withdrew, in consequence of those airs; and, after a little while, (repenting, as I hoped,) he sent for me out. Some wives would have played the queen Vashti on their tyrant, and refused to go: but I, all obedience, (my vow, so recently made, in my head,) obeyed, at the very first word: yet you must think that I (meek as I am naturally) could not help recriminating. He was too lordly to be expostulated with.-- There was, 'I tell you, madam,' and 'I won't be told, sir;' and when I broke from the passionate creature, and hoped to find my company, behold! they were all gone! None but Emily left. And thus might poor Lady L---- be sent home, weeping, perhaps, for such an early marriage-tyranny exerted on her meek sister. Well, and don't you think that we looked like a couple of fools at each other, when we saw ourselves left alone, as I may say, to fight it out? I did expostulate with him as mildly as I could: he would have made it up with me afterwards; but, no! there was no doing that, as a girl of your nice notions may believe, after he had, by his violent airs, exposed us both before so many witnesses. In decency, therefore, I was obliged to keep it up: and now our misunderstanding blazes, and is at such a comfortable height, that if we meet by accident, we run away from each other by design. We have already made two breakfast-tables: yet I am meek; he is sullen: I make courtesies; he returns not bows.--Sullen creature, and a rustic!--I go to my harpsichord; melody enrages him. He is worse than Saul; for Saul could be gloomily pleased with the music even of the man he hated.