One evening, the three were sitting in the drawing-room after dinner. The doctor was pretending to read a newspaper, but was really, under cover of it, watching his wife and sister with quiet amusement. They were engaged at a little work-table strewed with account books and other domestic documents, now chattering earnestly over them, now laughing together at Mary's blunders. At last Mary caught her husband's eye; she stamped her foot in simulated anger, "You must not watch me, sir!" she cried. "This is not your business. If you confuse me by looking over me, all the accounts will get muddled, and then you'll be complaining of my extravagance." "You are ruining me as it is, Mary," he replied, laughing. "You won't let me do anything for myself--you are always running here and there anticipating all my wants. Do you know you are spoiling me? I am becoming quite lazy and good-for-nothing in consequence of your treatment." "Don't talk nonsense, sir, or I shall come and kiss you." "Then I certainly shall talk nonsense," he emphatically exclaimed, putting down the newspaper. "No one would imagine you had been married so long, Harry--you ought to have become more staid by this time." "So long! Why we have not been married six months yet." "Well it does seem a long long time to me. I suppose it is because all my life has been so different, Harry--but I threatened to kiss you if you talked any more nonsense, and I shall keep my word," and she walked towards him and inflicted the threatened punishment. He seized her and made her sit on his knee. "You dear little wife," he said, "I thought you were perfect before I married you, but every day I see something new in you to love; I get quite afraid of you, I begin to think you are some sort of spirit, and will suddenly fly away from me one of these days." She put her hand upon his lips, "No more of this nonsense, sir!--Now let me go. It is time for you to have that horrid grog of yours--I will ring the bell for the hot water--then we will leave you to read the paper by yourself--I am sure that is more instructive for you than watching us adding up butcher's bills." "But not half so amusing. I am sick of these elections--the papers are full of nothing else. I am glad though that these detestable Radicals have been so well thrashed." "Is that so then, Harry?" asked Mary becoming suddenly serious, and sitting again on his knee from which she had just commenced to rise. "Yes, Mary, and it is their own fault too, they boasted too much about the revolutionary measures they intended to pass. They were going to confiscate the land and do all sorts of wild things, so people got frightened and would not vote for them." A thoughtful look came to Mary's face; she said nothing more about the elections, but became unusually quiet for the rest of the evening. Soon Mrs. White retired to her room, and Mary mixed her husband his glass of punch. She sat by his side nestling close to him, placing her hand in his.