breast heaved, and the fire-poker quivered with emotion. William
felt deeply. "Mine own," said the good woman, now busily irrigating
a mass of snowy dough for the evening meal, "do you know that there
is not a bite of meat in the house?"

It is a cold, unlovely truth-a sad, heart-sickening fact-but it
must be told by the conscientious novelist. William repaid all this
affectionate solicitude-all this womanly devotion, all this trust,
confidence, and abnegation in a manner that needs not be
particularly specified.

A short, sharp curve in the middle of that iron fire-poker is
eloquent of a wrong redressed. Little Isaac.

Mr. Gobwottle came home from a meeting of the Temperance Legion
extremely drunk. He went to the bed, piled himself loosely atop of
it and forgot his identity. About the middle of the night, his wife,
who was sitting up darning stockings, heard a voice from the
profoundest depths of the bolster: "Say, Jane?"

Jane gave a vicious stab with the needle, impaling one of her
fingers, and continued her work. There was a long silence, faintly
punctuated by the bark of a distant dog. Again that
voice--"Say-Jane!"

The lady laid aside her work and wearily, replied: "Isaac, do go to
sleep; they are off."

Another and longer pause, during which the ticking of the clock
became painful in the intensity of the silence it seemed to be