"Dear Aggy!" said I, throwing my work upon the floor, and bending earnestly towards her.--"Don't think too meanly of me for this little circumstance. I never was guilty of that thing before--never! And well have I been punished for my thoughtless folly I spoke from impulse, and not reflection, when I told Mary to say that I was not at home, and repented of what I had done almost as soon as the words passed my lips." Agnes looked at me for some moments, until her eyes filled with tears. Then she said in a low, sweet, earnest voice: "Mother always says, if she cannot see any one who calls, that she is engaged." "And so do I, dear," I returned. "This is my first offence against truth, and you may be sure that it will be the last." And it was my last. When next I met Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Glenn, there was, in both of them, a reserve not seen before. I felt this change keenly. I had wronged myself in their good opinion; and could not venture upon an explanation of my conduct; for that, I felt, might only make matters worse. How often, since, has my cheek burned, as a vivid recollection came up before my mind of what occurred on that morning! I can never forget it. CHAPTER X. SHIRT BUTTONS. IN a previous chapter, I gave the reader one of the Experiences of my sister's husband, Mr. John Jones. I now give another. There was a time in my married life, (thus Mr. Jones writes, in one of _his_ "Confessions,") when I was less annoyed if my bosom or wristband happened to be minus a button, than I am at present. But continual dropping will wear away a stone, and the ever recurring buttonless collar or wristband will wear out a man's patience, be he naturally as enduring as the Man Of Uz. I don't mean by this, that Mrs. Jones is a neglectful woman. Oh, no! don't let that be imagined for a moment. Mrs. Jones is a woman who has an eye for shirt buttons, and when that is said, a volume is told in a few words. But I don't care how careful a wife is, nor how good an eye she may have for shirt buttons, there will come a time, when, from some cause or other, she will momentarily abate her vigilance, and that will be the very time when Betty's washing-board, or Nancy's sad-iron, has been at work upon the buttons. For a year or two after our marriage, I used to express impatience, whenever, in putting on a clean shirt, I found a button gone. Mrs. Jones, bore this for a while without exhibiting much feeling. But it fretted her more than she permitted any one to see. At length, the constant recurrence of the evil--I didn't know as much then as I do now--annoyed me so that I passed from ejaculatory expressions of impatience into more decided and emphatic disapprobation, and to "Psha!" and "there it is again!" and the like were added: "I declare, Mrs. Jones, this is too bad!" or "I've given up hoping for a shirt with a full complement of buttons--" or "If you can't sew the buttons on my shirt, Mrs. Jones, I will hire some one to do it."