A GRUMBLE FROM THE (H)ALTAR.
This is the second day I’ve come home to dinner, without that yard of pink ribbon for Mrs. Pendennis. Now we shall have abroilnot down in the bill of fare. Julius Cæsar! if she only knew how much I have to do; but it would make no difference if she did. I used to think a fool was easily managed. Mrs. Pendennis has convinced me thatthatwas a mistake. If I try to reason with her, she talks round and round in a circle, like a kitten chasing its tail. If I set my arms akimbo, and look threatening, she settles into a fit of the sulks, to which a November drizzle of a fortnight’s duration is a millenium. If I try to get round her by petting, she is as impudent as the——. Yes, just about. Jerusalem! what a thing it is to be married! And yet, if an inscrutable Providence should bereave me of Mrs. Pendennis, I am not at all sure——good gracious, here she comes! Do you know I’d rather face one of Colt’s revolvers this minute, than that four feet of womanhood? Isn’t it astonishing, the way they do it?