This parting thrust rankled in Martha’s bosom, and the supper table was cleared with rather unnecessary clatter. The improvident, easy-going Enos always let her have her own way. He turned over his earnings to her more careful hands, spending very little on himself, and trusted implicitly to wifely wisdom in all household matters. A real quarrel between them had never occurred. Responsibility, shifted from his fat shoulders to her narrow ones, was both agreeable and natural to Enos. His make-up was that of the man who never “troubled trouble,” until cornered. Then he became actually belligerent and invited war. Up to this rare point Mr. Matchett bluffed good-humoredly. When assailed by creditors on the street he was invariably in a hurry to perform some important and paying job—a fictitious pleasantry. “Can’t bother about that now,” he would grin. “Drop ’round to the house an’ see Mis’ Matchett. She ’tends to the finances, an’ if she hasn’t spent all I give her lately, you’ll get something.” This ingenious disposition of duns was not meant to be unkind. “Martha’ll fix him,” Enos would chuckle, trotting along. “She don’t mind.” So the brunt fell on Martha, and it was patiently borne. But nerves grow irritable under constant pricking until they are ready to snap. Martha did mind. Of late she had felt like hiding whenever the door-bell rang. It took a long breath, a determined effort, a clutch at her quick beating heart for an appearance of unconcern, and her poor brain quivered with apprehension at its dearth of successful excuses. “Let him have a turn,” she muttered, wiping the dishes. “The rent collector won’t be ’round ’till afternoon, but there’s a-plenty of others likely to show up. His fifteen dollars will get melted fast enough. _I_ could sprinkle it right, but he don’t know how. The first feller will get it all, an’ then——” Martha paused to laugh, dismally. There was another side. How about future calls from those turned down by Enos? He might lose his temper. All the worse for her. “I’m most hopin’ nobody’ll come,” she faltered. “I ain’t so sure of gettin’ the best of this.” However, the following morning saw her marching off smilingly, with Lucianna in high feather at the prospect of a long stroll. Enos regarded their departure with complacence, expecting an undisturbed session. At the most, some small bill might be presented. He knew just how he would pay it; carelessly, with a jaunty, indifferent air, as if the amount was a trifle. This was his unvarying attitude of settlement—when he settled. With newspapers and a pipe, it would be quite a holiday. He established himself comfortably, soon forgetting indebtedness in perusing the details of late murders. Shortly after nine o’clock came a ring of the bell—a feeble peal—Enos went to the door. The caller was a stranger to him,—a dapper, gentlemanly man whose pleasant face bore an embarrassed expression. “I—I wish to see Mrs. Matchett,” he began.