Connubial Trouble

"I always thought there was some connection between a wife and buttons, and not a button on this shirt bosom, Bess!" We bad been married a year and more. And now we had quarreled - about buttons. I did not think then what an astonishing thing a woman must feel it to be taken from the pedestal on which her lover bas enshrined her as a goddess and scolded about some household matter. All men do it. I went to town. My business was transacted in a moody dream. I drowned my misary in cigars and went home as angry as I had left it. No Bess met me at the gate. I found her in the dining room, and she looked up with a proud, cold face, expecting an apology perhaps, but I gave her none. Fortunately I had a grievance - the tnutton was not cooked to suit me, aml there were no capera. I bogan once more on the subject of a wife's duties. Bridget must be overlooked. A bachelor might leave the dinner to a servant, but not a married man. Bess did not teil me what I knew already - tnat at .ume. Jfongee's nnlsnmg semmary the superintendence of a cook was not taught, and that a year is not a long experience. She Bat quite quiet and enraged me so that befoTe I sought my pillow I had said very cruel things, and she had at last dropjed one bitter, rankling speech into the momentary silence and had shut herself in her baby's nursery. And so it went on through all the bitter days of the long week. At last it was Saturday moming. I gave her a cruel stab- an unjust one, as I knew. When I spoke I had my back turned toward her and was looking out upon the cloudy sky, bo that I did not see her when she said: "You have made me hate you." I turned at that. She was standing quite palé, even to the lips, and I saw that she had drawn her wedding ring from her flnger. "I hate that," she said, "and I hate you." And she flung the ring upon the carpet and made a gesture as though she were flinging her love from her also and kift the room without anothor word, though I waited for her to come back for nearly an hour. I had much to do that day - business appointments which should have been attendcd to forthwith - but long after I had reached my office in the city I found myself sitting wretchedly in a chair, with my head upon my hands, thinking over and over agaiu those words, "I hate that, and I hate you." And my love came back, and I was Robcrt walking with Bessie under the trees again, not the stern married man determined to teach his wife hor duty. I looked at the elock. I had just time to catch the noon train for home. Who cared for business - for Jones and Brown and Thompson? I must go home and make it up with Bess. I seized my hat and flew down the Street. I reached the depot. I was in a car blteathless with exertion and anxk-ty. We wre 30 minutes in reaching P . To me it seemed 30 hours. At last I was there. Bef ore me aroae our little cottage, with its slope of velvet green from the door to the river's edge. ' U#sually all was quiet and scarcely a Eoul to be seen. Today a group of wonien stood by the river. Two men, one a sailor neighbor froin the village, were there also, and anióng them Bridget raised her shrill voice: "They've took to fightin lately, and they had it hot and heavy this blissed mornin, I shouldn'twondher. Howly father, there's tbe masther now, and she fledl" I saw them all looking at me In awe stricken silence. I saw also my little rowboat lying wet upon the sand, the oars not with her. I feit my heart stand still and gaspcd out: "What is the matter?" My sailor neighboranswered: "We're afeard there's been an accident. Toni Bowling took your boat out this moming, and the boat has been picked up - and -and Tom hasn't." Young Tom Bowling often borrowed my boat. I was not surprised at that. "I hope Tom is safe," I said. "At what hour did my wife lend hlm the boat?" Nobody spoke for two minutes. At last a -ornan began to sob: "Oh, don't teil him! Maybe 'tisn't so." And the sailor said solemnly: "Take heart, sir; mebbe there's hope, but your wifo hired Tom Bowling to row her and the baby on the river at half past 10." When those words feil upon my ears, I dropped upon the ground In a swoon. In three hours a boy found Tom's hat floating in the water. Two more, and a grim, hard featured man canje to me as I raved llke a maniac upon the beach and touched his hat. "Mister," hesaid, "Tom is found. They're a-bringin of him." I had no need to ask how be was found. I knew. So they would soon flnd Bess and her babe, heavy and cold, with dank, dripping hair and eyes wide open, staring at the sky. Oh, it would have been terrible enough without the awful meniory that we had quarreled; that I had said cruel things to her, and that she had said: "I hate youl" I went into the house and searched for the wedding ring. I could not flnd it. Then a hope came into my heart- that she had so far relented as to restore it to her finger, and that it would be found upon her dead, white hand. I heard a shout from those without, and some one came screaming up the hall. It was Bridget. "Missus- lt's missus. She's found!" she cried. "And baby too! Oh, Lord! Oh, saints abovel She's foundr The horrible picture of the dripping marble lovelineso they must be hearing along the pebbly shore passed before my eyes. I grew sick and blind. "Oh, my darling Rob, what a fright you have had, and what a sad, sad thing to happen to poor Torn! Oh, my dear, how ill you ïook! It's Bessíe, your ovni Bessie, ar.d our daj-ling baby!" She iras in my arms again, and we were Vreeping together. "You see, your dear husbandj' sobbed Beasle, "I didn't mean wiint I sind, not a word of it, and when you had gonerl feit so dreadful to thlnk how I had acted and what words I had used that I couldn't stay at home, so I hired poor Torn to row me to the depot. ' "And Torn left me at the wharf , and I went down and have been at your office ever since, frihtened to death about you, for the janitrêss said you'd never been there, and as many as 50 gentlemen were very anxigus to see you." And then sBe stopped and could only sob and kiss me. We have nover since fallen out for one moment; we have had ourlesson in that ona terrible quarrel about buttons. - M. D. in Cincinnati Post, How Sap Riges In the Leaves. To a great degree, it is the result of a mode of düïusion which has been oalled endosmose. Water largely evaporates f rom the leaves; it flies off into the anas vapor, leaving behind all the earthy and the organic matters - these notbeing volatile. The sap in the cells of the leaf therefore becomes denser, and so draws upon the more watery contenta of the cells of the stalk, these upon those of the stem below, and so on f rom cell to cell down to the root, causing a flow f rom the roots to the leaves, which begins in the laíter, just aa a wind begins in the direction toward which it blows.