"She is a fine woman," answered Mr. Weekes, "--fine enough for anything; but fine weather's no good if you'm bedridden, and a fine woman's no good to her husband if she won't--however, us needn't wash our dirty linen in public. We've all our defects." "Almost too high-spirited, if I may venture to say so," declared Mr. Churchward. "She has the courage of the masculine gender." "So have I, if I was let bide," explained Philip. "That's the mischief of it. If I'd been a sort of weak man, ready to go under, and do woman's work, and play second fiddle happily, it wouldn't have mattered; but I ban't at all that sort of man by nature, and it hurts my feelings to be made to do it." "I'm sure you'm too wise to rebel, however," said Mr. Huggins. "'Twas much the same with me, and often I wish I'd been so sensible as you; but my manly spirit wouldn't brook nothing of that sort. 'I won't have it!' I used to say in my fierce way. But I'm sorry now, because she might have been alive yet if I'd been a thought easier with her." Noah Pearn winked behind the back of Mr. Huggins at the company generally, for it was well remembered that Valentine's vanished partner had ruled him with a rod of iron. Mr. Weekes, however, showed no amusement. In his mind he was retracing certain painful recent incidents. "Take what fell out this very day at morn," he said, "to show how rash and wilful Mrs. Weekes can be of a Saturday. I was down in the garden attending to a thing or two and packing a pair of birds for our own hamper. Suddenly she came out of the house and began. 'Twas all about Mrs. Swain, of course, and how I never can send two birds of the same size, and how my goings-on will ruin our custom and spoil business and fetch us to the poor-house in our old age. She was in full swing, souls, when down comes Susan from the kitchen, running as if the dowl was arter her. 'Oh, Aunt Hepsy!' she begins. Then her aunt cut her short, and told her not to dare open her silly mouth while she was talking. So Susan stood still and the missis went on at me. I was a greedy Gubbins, and a traitor, and a wolf in sheep's clothing, and a lot of other things; I was a reed shaken with the wind, a know-nought gert mumphead, and suchlike. Then, after ten minutes of it, I should think, she turned to Susan, and asked what she'd got to say. The toad of a girl grinned in our faces and said 'twas of no consequence, only a gert strange dog, with a bit of broken rope round his neck, had got into the kitchen and put his paws on the table and growled at her, like a bear, and showed all his teeth at once. Well--there 'twas--you can guess what the room looked like when I runned in. The dog--I know whose dog 'twas well enough!--had done just what he damn pleased. He only made off when he heard me coming, and a muck heap's a neat, orderly place to what that kitchen was after he'd gone. Everything off the table, for he'd