outbreak in his usually quiet and patient wife, but who, like most
women of that stamp, had considerable spirit when it was aroused.

"Now that you are through, Mrs. Taggard, perhaps you will let me say a
word. Here is all the money I can spare you this month; so you can
make the most of it."

Laying a roll of bills on the table, Mr. Taggard walked to the door;
remarking, just before he closed it, that he should leave town on the
next train, to be absent about a week.

The reverie into which Mrs. Taggard fell, as she listened to the sound
of his retreating steps, was far from being a pleasant one. Aside from
her natural vexation, she felt grieved and saddened by the change that
had come over her once kind, indulgent husband. He seemed to be
entirely filled with the greed of gain, the desire to amass
money--not for the sake of the good that it might enable him to
enjoy, or confer, but for the mere pleasure of hoarding it. And this
miserly feeling grew upon him daily, until he seemed to grudge his
family the common comforts of life. And yet Mrs. Taggard knew that he
was not only in receipt of a comfortable income from his business, but
had laid by a surplus, yearly, ever since their marriage.

She had taxed her ingenuity to save in every possible way, but when
the monthly bills were presented the same scene was enacted, only it
grew worse and worse.

And this penuriousness extended to himself. He grudged himself, as
well as wife and children, clothing suitable to his means and station,
and went about looking so rusty and shabby that Mrs. Taggard often