full civilized costume, clad solely in the chimney-pot hat? And who, that has ever been privileged to enjoy histrionic art in the vicinity of dames of high degree, can deny the possibilities of terror, wrath, and doom lurking in that Hat of the Mighty, that lofty and awe-inspiring structure, the _Matinée Hat_? Let no man think lightly of hats. So Arthur reflected, gloomily sipping his modest glass, and wondering if it was a _Matinée Hat_ that Jezebel assumed on the unfortunate occasion when she painted her face and tired her head before looking out of the window. To ask Ermengarde's solution of this question would be impolitic; to remind her of national and individual tragedies connected with the ownership of those jewelled and golden hats, styled crowns, diadems, and coronets, equally so. But his head was too full of hats to allow the entrance of any other subject, which was wrong--hats should be on heads, not in them. Stealthily and with apparent absence of mind he drew a dish of biscuits out of his wife's reach. She liked to nibble a biscuit after dinner; so he hoped that consuming desire of some might constrain her to say, "Please pass the biscuits." She, on the other hand, was hoping that common civility might prompt him to the question, "Won't you have a biscuit?" So, while he waited for her to say, "Please pass the biscuits," and she waited for him to say "Won't you have a biscuit?" nothing passed but time, who waits for no man, though often on insufficient warrant expected to wait for women. Time on this occasion passed at a snail's gallop, and yet he arrived at the moment when Ermengarde was wont to rise from table before Arthur had decided whether to withhold the usual ceremony of opening the door for her or, in apparent mental preoccupation, to perform it in stately and withering silence. The consequence was that, just as he had decided on the latter course, the indignant rustle and whisk of vanishing skirts accused him to his conscience of being a beast and a cad, and made him address several words of doubtful propriety to his pipe, which, not having been lighted, obstinately refused to draw. How easily the rift widens in the conjugal lute! Ermengarde sank in the Chesterfield by the fire, and wondered why she had been allowed to marry in her teens. She had had no youth, she told herself; all her brightest years had been sacrificed--to an elderly man, devoid of sympathy. Her health was gone; she was prematurely aged; she thought she had detected a grey hair while brushing her locks that morning; she was almost sure that crow's feet were gathering round her eyes; her face was thin, pale, and haggard, her beauty lost; the elderly man she had thoughtlessly married already neglected her. Charlie would soon be a man--he was eight already--he would storm out into the world and be independent of her; he had long hated to be kissed, and generally ducked his head when she tried.