that I really did not exactly know what to do: so I took a few up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back again.
"Dora, my darling!"
"No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you married me, or else you wouldn't reason with me!" returned Dora.
I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it gave me courage to be grave.
"Now, my own Dora," said I, "you are very childish, and are talking nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out yesterday when dinner was half over; and that, the day before, I was made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry; to-day, I don't dine at all—and I am afraid to say how long we waited for breakfast—and then the water didn't boil. I don't mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable."
"Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife!" cried Dora.
"Now. my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that!"
"You said I wasn't comfortable!" said Dora.
"I said the housekeeping was not comfortable."
"It's exactly the same thing!" cried Dora. And she evidently thought so, for she wept most grievously.
I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife, and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against the door. I sat down again, and said:
"I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. I am only trying to show you, my dear, that you must—you really must" (I was resolved not to give this up)—"accustom yourself to look after Mary Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and me."
"I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches," sobbed Dora. "When you know that the other day, when you said you would like a little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it, to surprise you."
"And it was very kind of you, my own darling," said I. "I felt it so much that I wouldn't on any account have even mentioned that you bought a Salmon—which was too much for two. Or that it cost one pound six—which was more than we can afford."
"You enjoyed it very much," sobbed Dora. "And you said I was a Mouse."
"And I'll say so again, my love," I returned, "a thousand times!"
But I had wounded Dora's soft little heart, and she was not to be comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that I felt as if I had said I don't know what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry away; I was kept out late; and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as made me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous wickedness.
It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found my aunt, in our house, sitting up for me.
"Is anything the matter, aunt?" said I, alarmed.
"Nothing, Trot," she replied. "Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom has been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her company. That's all."
