Mrs. Restless scorns the unintellectual and despises the frivolous. She believes herself to be the reverse of both, and entertains great opinions of her own mental powers. But, dear thing, she is naïvely superficial; she has, unfortunately, no time for reading, and—thank goodness!—she has no logic. If she had she would be unendurable, for she would wish to reason out her aggressive busying. Of course she firmly believes she is logical. What woman does not, and would not be offended if you hinted to the contrary? But, truly, a logical woman loses half the charm of her sex, for her moods must be consequent and responsible. Now, Mrs. Restless redeems much of her irritating faculty of idle occupation by her delightfully amusing inconsequence, of which, however, she is quite seriously unconscious. She will go off at a tangent without any provocation, which to the humorously inclined outsider frequently provides food for mirth, though to Mr. Restless the fact of not knowing what his wife’s irresponsible energy will prompt her to say and do next must be somewhat temper-trying. Nevertheless, he adores her, and when he is not reproving her in his practical way, while she attempts to argue his utter incapacity to understand her high-minded aims, they do a good deal of billing and cooing, though she is always too restless to enjoy even the repose of the melting, affectionate mood for many minutes together. If her husband, to whom she is devotedly attached, comes home tired from his daily work, and inclined to rest in the society of his wife, she will fret him with the petty details of her day’s doings, of which he will not find much to approve, seeing that her “much ado about nothing” has perhaps involved the departure of a valuable servant, the estrangement of a useful acquaintance, or a quarrel with an excellent tradesman. Then she will have muddled up her engagements so that she is obliged to drag her unwilling husband from the much-needed quiet of his domestic hearth to some purposeless party, where boredom is inevitable. In spite of her professed dislike to the idle members of the community, of the Society butterflies that flutter over the flowered fields of pleasure, Mrs. Restless is never happier than when she is going to parties, and theatres, and fêtes; but when she does so she speaks of it as a duty rather than an amusement, and grumbles that Society keeps her so busy. Not that she allows social occupations to interfere with her domestic cares. She has children, and they know it; and servants, and _they_ know it. She never allows them to forget that they are _her_ children and _her_ servants. Not a detail concerning either escapes her, but she misses the general harmony in effect. She worries about everything and everybody, until I verily believe the infant in the cradle longs to find prussic acid in its bottle, if only to obtain a little peace.