business." ... "Maggie, are you alone? Oh, all right, I'll come
down." Of a wife I should have said she was a woman whose eyes were
ever love-lit when resting on her man; who was glad where he was and
troubled where he was not. But in every case this might not have been
correct.

Also, I should have had something to say concerning the alarms and
excursions attending residence with any married couple. I should have
recommended the holding up of feet under the table lest, mistaken for
other feet, they should be trodden on and pressed. Also, I should
have advised against entry into any room unpreceded by what in
Stageland is termed "noise without." It is somewhat disconcerting to
the nervous incomer to be met, the door still in his hand, by a sound
as of people springing suddenly into the air, followed by a weird
scuttling of feet, and then to discover the occupants sitting stiffly
in opposite corners, deeply engaged in book or needlework. But, as I
have said, with regard to some households, such precautions might be
needless.

Personally, I fear, I exercised little or no controlling influence
upon my parents in this respect, my intrusions coming soon to be
greeted with: "Oh, it's only Spud," in a tone of relief, accompanied
generally by the sofa cushion; but of my aunt they stood more in awe.
Not that she ever said anything, and, indeed, to do her justice, in
her efforts to spare their feelings she erred, if at all, on the side
of excess. Never did she move a footstep about the house except to
the music of a sustained and penetrating cough. As my father once
remarked, ungratefully, I must confess, the volume of bark produced by
my aunt in a single day would have done credit to the dying efforts of
a hospital load of consumptives; to a robust and perfectly healthy