The Two Wives | Page 8

to my wife."
"Any other evening will do as well for that," returned the friend. "So
promise me to come around. I can't do without you."
"Sorry to disappoint you," said Ellis, firmly. "But, when I once get my
mind fixed on a thing, I am hard to change."
"Perhaps your wife may have some engagement on hand, for the
evening, or be disinclined for reading. What then?"

"You will see me at your room," was the prompt answer of Ellis; and
the words were uttered with more feeling than he had intended to
exhibit. The very question brought unpleasant images before his mind.
"I shall look for you," said the friend, whose name was Jerome. Good
evening!"
"Good evening! Say to your friends, if I should not be there, that I am
in better company."
The two men parted, and Ellis kept on his way homeward. Not until the
suggestion of Jerome that his wife might be disinclined to hear him
read, did a remembrance of Cara's uncertain temper throw a shade
across his feelings. He sighed as he moved onward.
"I wish she were kinder and more considerate," he said to himself. "I
know that I don't always do right; yet, I am not by any means so bad as
she sometimes makes me out. To any thing reasonable, I am always
ready to yield. But when she frowns if I light a cigar; and calls me a
tippler whenever she detects the smell of brandy and water, I grow
angry and stubborn. Ah, me!"
Ellis sighed heavily. A little way he walked on, and then began
communing with himself.
"I don't know"--he went on--"but, may be, I do take a little too much
sometimes. I rather think I must have been drinking too freely when I
came home last week: by the way Cara talked, and by the way she
acted for two or three days afterwards. There may be danger. Perhaps
there is. My head isn't very strong; and it doesn't take much to affect
me. I wish Cara wouldn't speak to me as she does sometimes. I can't
bear it. Twice within the last month, she has fairly driven me off to
spend my evening in a tavern, when I would much rather have been at
home. Ah, me! It's a great mistake. And Cara may find it out, some day,
to her sorrow. I like a glass of brandy, now and then; but I'm not quite
so far gone that I must have it whether or no. I'm foolish, I will own, to
mind her little, pettish, fretful humours. I ought to be more of a man
than I am. But, I didn't make myself, and can't help feeling annoyed,

and sometimes angry, when she is unkind and unreasonable. Going off
to a tavern don't mend the matter, I'll admit; but, when I leave the house,
alone, after nightfall, and in a bad humour, it is the most natural thing
in the world for me to seek the pleasant company of some of my old
friends--and I generally know where to find them."
Such was the state of mind in which Ellis returned home.
A word or two will give the reader a better idea of the relation which
Henry Ellis and his wife bore to each other and society. They had been
married about six years, and had three children, the oldest a boy, and
the other two girls. Ellis kept a retail dry-goods store, in a small way.
His capital was limited, and his annual profits, therefore, but light. The
consequence was, that, in all his domestic arrangements, the utmost
frugality had to be observed. He was a man of strict probity, with some
ambition to get ahead in the world. These made him careful and
economical in his expenditures, both at home and in the management of
his business. As a man, he was social in his feelings, but inclined to be
domestic. While unmarried, he had lived rather a gay life, and formed a
pretty large acquaintance among young men. His associations led him
into the pretty free use of intoxicating drinks; but the thought of
becoming a slave of a vicious appetite never once crossed his mind
with its warning shadow.
The first trial of Henry Ellis's married life was the imperative necessity
that required him to lay a restraining hand upon his wife's disposition to
spend money more freely than was justified by their circumstances. He
had indulged her for the period of a whole year, and the result was so
heavy a balance against his expense account, that he became anxious
and troubled. There must be a change, or his business would be
crippled, and ultimate ruin follow. As gently as he could, Ellis brought
the attention of his