Paste Jewels | Page 9

places!
And then Thaddeus came, and made all plain to the little woman, and
when he was all through she was satisfied. He had discharged the
tyrants, and had supplied their places. The latter was the important
business which had taken him to town.
"But, Teddy," Bessie said, with a smile, when she had heard all, "how
did poor mild little you ever have the courage to face those two women
and give them their discharge?"
Teddy blushed. "I didn't," he answered, meekly; "I wrote it."
Five years have passed since then, and all has gone well. Thaddeus has
remained free, and, as he proudly observes, domestics now tremble at
his approach--that is, all except Norah, who remembers him as of old.
Ellen and Jane are living together in affluence, having saved their
wages for nearly the whole of their term of "service." Bessie is happy
in the possession of two fine boys, to whom all her attention--all save a
little reserved for Thaddeus--is given; and, as for the dubious,
auburn-haired, and distinctly Celtic Norah, Thaddeus is afraid that she
is developing into a "treasure."
"Why do you think so?" Bessie asked him, when he first expressed that
fear.
"Oh, she has the symptoms," returned Thaddeus. "She has taken three
nights off this week."

MR. BRADLEY'S JEWEL

Thaddeus was tired, and, therefore, Thaddeus was grumpy. One
premise only was necessary for the conclusion--in fact, it was the only
premise upon which a conclusion involving Thaddeus's grumpiness
could find a foothold. If Thaddeus felt rested, everything in the world

could go wrong and he would smile as sweetly as ever; but with the
slightest trace of weariness in his system the smile would fade,
wrinkles would gather on his forehead, and grumpiness set in whether
things were right or wrong. On this special occasion to which I refer,
things were just wrong enough to give him a decent excuse-- outside of
his weariness--for his irritation. Norah, the housemaid, had officiously
undertaken to cover up the shortcomings of John, who should have
blacked Thaddeus's boots, and who had taken his day off without
preparing the extra pair which the lord of the manor had expected to
wear that evening. It was nice of the housemaid, of course, to try to
black the extra pair to keep John out of trouble, but she might have
been more discriminating. It was not necessary for her to polish, until
they shone like Claude Lorraine glasses, two right boots, one of which,
paradoxical as it may seem, was consequently the wrong boot; so that
when Thaddeus came to dress for the evening's diversion there was
nowhere to be found in his shoe- box a bit of leathern gear in which his
left foot might appear in polite society to advantage. Possibly Thaddeus
might have endured the pain of a right boot on a left foot, had not
Norah unfortunately chosen for that member a box-toed boot, while for
the right she had selected one with a very decided acute angle at its
toe-end.
"Just like a woman!" ejaculated Thaddeus, angrily.
"Yes," returned Bessie, missing Thaddeus's point slightly. "It was very
thoughtful of Norah to look after John's work, knowing how important
it was to you."
Fortunately Thaddeus was out of breath trying to shine up the other
pointed-toe shoe, so that his only reply to this was a look, which Bessie,
absorbed as she was in putting the studs in Thaddeus's shirt, did not see.
If she had seen it, I doubt if she would have been so entirely happy as
the tender little song she was humming softly to herself seemed to
indicate that she was.
"Some people are born lucky!" growled Thaddeus, as he finished
rubbing up the left boot, giving it a satin finish which hardly matched
the luminous brilliance of its mate, though he said it would do. "There's

Bradley, now; he never has any domestic woes of this sort, and he pays
just half what we do for his servants."
"Oh, Mr. Bradley. I don't like him!" ejaculated Bessie. "You are always
talking about Mr. Bradley, as if he had an automaton for a servant."
"No, I don't say he has an automaton," returned Thaddeus.
"Automatons don't often work, and Bradley's jewel does. Her name is
Mary, but Bradley always calls her his jewel."
"I've heard of jewels," said Bessie, thinking of the two Thaddeus and
she had begun their married life with, "but they've always seemed to
me to be paste emeralds--awfully green, and lot worth much."
"There's no paste emerald about Bradley's girl," said Thaddeus. "Why,
he says that woman has been in Mrs. Bradley's employ for seven weeks
now, and she hasn't broken a bit of china; never sweeps dust under the
beds or bureaus; keeps the silver