change was peculiarly visible. To speak first of the lady, as in
chivalry bound, Mrs. Riccabocca had entirely renounced that melancholy
which had characterized Miss Jemima; she became even sprightly and gay,
and looked all the better and prettier for the alteration. She did not
scruple to confess honestly to Mrs. Dale that she was now of opinion that
the world was very far from approaching its end. But, in the meanwhile,
she did not neglect the duty which the belief she had abandoned serves to
inculcate,--"She set her house in order." The cold and penurious
elegance that had characterized the Casino disappeared like enchantment,
--that is, the elegance remained, but the cold and penury fled before the
smile of woman. Like Puss-in-Boots, after the nuptials of his master,
Jackeymo only now caught minnows and sticklebacks for his own amusement.
Jackeymo looked much plumper, and so did Riccabocca. In a word, the fair
Jemima became an excellent wife. Riccabocca secretly thought her
extravagant, but, like a wise man, declined to look at the house bills,
and ate his joint in unreproachful silence.

Indeed there was so much unaffected kindness in the nature of Mrs.
Riccabocca--beneath the quiet of her manner there beat so genially the
heart of the Hazeldeans--that she fairly justified the favourable
anticipations of Mrs. Dale. And though the doctor did not noisily boast
of his felicity, nor, as some new married folks do, thrust it insultingly
under the /nimis unctis naribus/,--the turned-up noses of your surly old
married folks,--nor force it gaudily and glaringly on the envious eyes of
the single, you might still see that he was a more cheerful and light-
hearted man than before. His smile was less ironical, his politeness
less distant. He did not study Machiavelli so intensely,--and he did not
return to the spectacles; which last was an excellent sign. Moreover,
the humanizing influence of the tidy English wife might be seen in the
improvement of his outward or artificial man. His clothes seemed to fit