I am not, in any sense of the term, an ambitious man, being happily blessed with a peaceful and contented mind which renders me unwilling to make any departure from my usual habits. As regards old-fashioned ways I am somewhat of a conservative; I do not care for new things and new sensations, and I am not forever looking up at persons above me, and sighing for their possessions and enjoyments. Indeed, I am convinced that the happiest lot is that of the mortal who is neither too high nor too low, and who is in possession of a competence which will serve for modest pleasures, without exciting the envy of friends and acquaintances. Such a competence was mine; such pleasures were mine. Secure from storms and unnecessary worries--by which I mean worries self-inflicted by fidgety persons, or persons discontented with their lot--I should have been quite satisfied to remain all my life in our cozy ten-roomed house, which we had inhabited for twenty years, and in which we had been as comfortable as reasonable beings can expect to be in life. Not so my wife, the best of creatures in her way, but lately (as I subsequently discovered) tormented with jealousy of certain old friends who, favored by fortune, had moved a step or two up the social ladder. It was natural, when these friends visited us, that they should dilate with pride upon their social rise, and should rather loftily, and with an air of superiority, seize the opportunity of describing the elegances of their new houses and furniture. Their fine talk amused me, and I listened to it undisturbed; but it rendered my wife restless and uneasy, and the upshot of it was that one morning, during breakfast, she said: "You have nothing particular to do to-day, my dear?" "No, nothing particular," I replied. "Then you won't mind coming with me to see some new houses." I gasped. The murder was out. "Some new houses!" I cried. "You can't expect me to go alone," she said calmly. "It would hardly be safe--to say nothing of its impropriety--for a lady, unaccompanied, to wander through a number of empty houses with the street door shut. We read of such dreadful things in the papers." "Quite true; they are enough to make one's hair stand on end. It would not be prudent. But what necessity is there for you to go into a number of empty houses?" "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. "You know we must move; you know that it is impossible for us to remain in this house any longer." "Why not?" "Such a question! And the house in the state it is!" "A very comfortable state, Maria. There is nothing whatever the matter with it." "There is everything the matter with it." "Oh, if you say so----" "I do say so." A man who has been long married learns from experience, and profits by what he learns, if he has any sense in him. I am a fairly sensible man, and experience has taught me some useful lessons. Therefore I went on with my breakfast in silence, knowing that my wife would soon speak again.