her condition for a time. When people praised her husband for what he had accomplished alone and with no help, rising from the ranks, as it were, to a place of influence in life's army, she smiled and showed satisfaction.

But after a year passed by she began to wish her husband had acquired more polish—that he had enjoyed better advantages—and she found herself irritated by his manners and his speech.

It pleased her immensely when any one spoke of her as 'a superior woman.' She related such compliments to her husband; and he, too, was pleased, and told her how fortunate he was to have won a wife of such intellectual brilliancy.

Ofttimes he repeated similar compliments[4] to her; telling how proud he felt when other people recognised his good luck. But, little by little, the pride of the husband abated; and just in proportion to the growing self-satisfaction of the wife. As she talked more, he talked less; he grew taciturn; his speech became halting, and his manner constrained.

They had been married five years when this supposedly good and moral husband displayed his badness. He brought home a gift to his wife—one he had thought would give her pleasure. She took great pride in her house, and loved to decorate it with odd and beautiful things.

So he had seen this vase in a window and brought it to her, with almost the[5] vanished look of pleasure in his recently lined face.

The wife looked at it, and her brow contracted. Then she said rather petulantly, 'Dear, you would be wise to consult me before you buy anything for the house; you must know by this time that your own taste is not to be relied upon.'

Then the wife stood aghast as the always gentle and kindly man burst forth. He said: