Peter became interested in the private habits of this reverend gentleman, and would gladly have remained to ascertain yet more concerning them, but being unable to direct the course of his dream, he was unfortunately compelled to follow a melancholy creature who happened just then to cross his dreamy path. True, he had somewhere read or heard that melancholy men were naturally endowed with greater genius than those blessed with more volatile dispositions, and he therefore expected to gain from this new subject what he had missed by losing the other. He was led to a large and splendid establishment, which he regarded as being certainly much better calculated to produce comfort and happiness than melancholy. He had scarcely entered, before he heard a harsh, shrill voice re-echoing through the house, and when the termagant, who seemed to have inherited from nature a perfect right to its possession, made her appearance, he could not help repeating to himself the proverb of Solomon, “_It is_ better to dwell in a corner of the house-top, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.” “What an excellent Tatianian he would have made,” remarked a pert young lady of the village, who would sometimes honor Peter with a few moments of her attention, and to whom the thought of such unfortunate husbands always afforded matter for merriment. “Why so?” anxiously queried Peter, who could not fathom her meaning. “Because they maintained that all, except themselves, were damned through mother Eve, and that women were made by the devil, to the latter of which tenets your hen-pecked vision could no doubt have sworn with the strictest of the sect.” “Notwithstanding such were their origin, we would treasure them,” added another. “Proving,” replied she, “that the gifts from that quarter are preferred, and that there is no justice in your complaints when the penalty is to be paid.” Peter was naturally somewhat sympathetic, and would gladly have condoled with this melancholy man in his affliction, but the domestic pest kept too strict a watch to permit it. He apprehended the consequences likely to follow, should he presume too much, and therefore wisely concluded not to cause the reigning spirit of the mansion to “pass still more the equilibrium of her balance.” He reflected how indiscreet it is to interfere in matters of this kind, and remembering the advice of the old poet, he thought it judicious not to disregard it: “Have pity on yourself, and, though you’re stout As mastiff breed, don’t take a bear by th’ snout.”