Of course a new house chosen by some one else is better
than none at all, but a woman hates surprises of that sort, and somehow
my teeth were set on edge by the few things about the house that didn't
suit me. And then, dear," she continued, caressingly, "I don't think
it was very nice of me to meddle with your great-grandfather Plunkett's
portrait. It was too much in the line of the people who have their
ancestors painted to order. I think of it quite often at night and
blush, which shows that I have a guilty conscience on the subject,
though I can't help feeling that it has been very much improved
whenever I look at it."
"It was a very trifling amelioration," I answered. "And, if I remember
rightly, it was I who put you up to it."
"Yes, but you were only in jest, and I was base enough to adopt the
idea and act upon it. No, Fred, though I agree that everything has
worked out a great deal more satisfactorily than I deserve, and that we
are infinitely better off than we have ever been before in point of
comfort and general happiness, I look back on the last year and a half
as a sort of nightmare. You were content to live along steadily in the
dear old house and to toil unselfishly for us all, and I was
perpetually prodding you. It has made me feel myself to be a perfect
ogre of a woman.
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