"I"ve brought a friend home to dinner, Jane," said he, as coolly and as confidently as if it were not washing day; and as if he had not told me on going out, that he would dine at an eating house.
This was a little too much for my patience and forbearance.
"Are you beside yourself, Mr. Smith?" I replied, my face instantly becoming flushed, and my eyes glancing out upon him the sudden indignation I felt at such treatment.
"Why, Jane! Jane! This is not kind in you," said my husband, with regret and displeasure in his voice. "It is rather hard if a man can"t ask an old friend home to dine with him once in five years, without asking the special permission of his wife."
"Mr. Smith! Are you not aware that this is washing day?"
There was an instant change in my husband"s countenance. He seemed bewildered for a few moments.
"And, moreover," I continued, "are you not aware that I was to have a picked-up dinner at home, and that you were to dine at an eating house?"
"I declare!" Mr. Smith struck his hands together, and turned around once upon his heel.--"I entirely forgot about that."
"What"s to be done?" said I, almost crying with vexation. "I"ve nothing for dinner but fried ham and eggs."
"The best we can do is the best," returned Mr. Smith. "You can give Mr. Jones a hearty welcome, and that will compensate for any defects in the dinner. I forewarned him that we should not entertain him very sumptuously."
"You"d better tell him the whole truth at once," said I, in answer to this; "and then take him to an eating house."
But my good husband would hear to nothing of this. He had invited his old friend to dine with him; and dine he must, if it was only on a piece of dry bread.
"Pick up something. Do the best you can," he returned. "We can wait for half an hour."
"I"ve nothing in the house, I tell you," was my answer made in no very pleasant tones; for I felt very much irritated and outraged by my husband"s thoughtless conduct.
"There, there, Jane. Don"t get excited about the matter," said he soothingly. But his words were not like oil to the troubled waters of my spirit.
"I am excited," was my response. "How can I help being so? It is too much! You should have had more consideration."
But, talking was of no use. Mr. Jones was in the parlor, and had come to take a family dinner with us. So, nothing was left but to put a good face on the matter; or, at least, to try and do so.
"Dinner"s on the table now," said I. "All is there that we can have to-day. So just invite your friend to the dining room, where you will find me."
So saying, I took a little fellow by the hand, who always eat with us, and led him away, feeling, as my lady readers will very naturally suppose, in not the most amiable humor in the world. I had just got the child, who was pretty hungry, seated in his high chair, when my husband and his guest made their appearance; and I was introduced.
Sorry am I to chronicle the fact--but truth compels me to make a faithful record--that my reception of the stranger was by no means gracious. I tried to smile; but a smile was such a mockery of my real feelings, that every facial muscle refused to play the hypocrite. The man was not welcome, and it was impossible for me to conceal this.
"A plain family dinner, you see," said Mr. Smith, as we took our places at the meagre board. "We are plain people. Shall I help you to some of the ham and eggs?"
He tried to smile pleasantly, and to seem very much at his ease.
But, the attempt was far from successful.
"I want some! Don"t give him all!" screamed out the hungry child at my side, stretching out his hands towards the poorly supplied dish, from which my husband was about supplying our guest.
My face, which was red enough before, now became like scarlet. A moment longer I remained at the table, and then rising up quickly took the impatient child in my arms, and carried him screaming from the room. I did not return to grace the dinner table with my unattractive presence. Of what pa.s.sed, particularly, between my husband and his friend Mr. Jones, who had left his luxurious dinner at the hotel to enjoy "a plain family dinner" with his old acquaintance, I never ventured to make enquiry. They did not remain very long at the table; nor very long in the house after finishing their frugal meal.
I have heard since that Mr. Jones has expressed commiseration for my husband, as the married partner of a real termigant. I don"t much wonder at his indifferent opinion; for, I rather think I must have shown in my face something of the indignant fire that was in me.
Mr. Smith, who was too much in the habit of inviting people home to take a "family dinner" with him on the spur of the moment, has never committed that error since. His mortification was too severe to be easily forgotten.
CHAPTER VIII.
WHO IS KRISS KRINGLE?
IT was the day before Christmas--always a day of restless, hopeful excitement among the children; and my thoughts were busy, as is usual at this season, with little plans for increasing the gladness of my happy household. The name of the good genius who presides over toys and sugar plums was often on my lips, but oftener on the lips of the children.
"Who is Kriss Kringle, mamma?" asked a pair of rosy lips, close to my ear, as I stood at the kitchen table, rolling out and cutting cakes.
I turned at the question, and met the earnest gaze of a couple of bright eyes, the roguish owner of which had climbed into a chair for the purpose of taking note of my doings.
I kissed the sweet lips, but did not answer.
"Say, mamma? Who is Kriss Kringle?" persevered the little one.
"Why, don"t you know?" said I, smiling.
"No, mamma. Who is he?"
"Why, he is--he is--Kriss Kringle."
"Oh, mamma! Say, won"t you tell me?"
"Ask papa when he comes home," I returned, evasively.
I never like deceiving children in any thing. And yet, Christmas after Christmas, I have imposed on them the pleasant fiction of Kriss Kringle, without suffering very severe pangs of conscience.
Dear little creatures! how fully they believed, at first, the story; how soberly and confidingly they hung their stockings in the chimney corner; with what faith and joy did they receive their many gifts on the never-to-be-forgotten Christmas morning!
Yes, it is a pleasant fiction; and if there be in it a leaven of wrong, it is indeed a small portion.
"But why won"t you tell me, mamma?" persisted my little interrogator. "Don"t you know Kriss Kringle?"
"I never saw him, dear," said I.
"Has papa seen him?"
"Ask him when he comes home."
"I wish Krissy would bring me, Oh, such an elegant carriage and four horses, with a driver that could get down and go up again."
"If I see him, I"ll tell him to bring you just such a nice carriage."
"And will he do it, mamma?" The dear child clapped his hands together with delight.