and with my husband's sanction!" she had said with concentrated bitterness.
Then had followed what he was accustomed to characterize as a spell of "zero
weather." He discreetly said nothing. "It didn't seem such a bad idea to me,"
he thought, "but then I suppose women folks know best about such things."

He was too frank in his nature to conceal from Holcroft his misgivings or his
wife's scornful and indignant disapproval. "Sorry Angy feels so bad about it,
Jim," he said ruefully, "but she says I mustn't buy anything more of you."

"Or have anything more to do with me, I suppose?"

"Oh, come now! You know a man's got to let his women-folks have their say
about household matters, but that don't make any difference in my feelings
toward you."

"Well, well, Tom! If it did, I should be slow to quarrel with a man who had
done me as good a turn as you have. Thank the Lord! I've got a wife that'll
let me have some say about household and all other matters. You, too, are
inclined to think that I'm in an awful scrape. I feel less like getting out
of it every day. My wife is as respectable as I am and a good sight better
than I am. If I'm no longer respectable for having married her, I certainly
am better contented than I ever expected to be again. I want it understood,
though, that the man who says anything against my wife may have to get me
arrested for assault and battery."

"When it comes to that, Jim," replied Watterly, who was meek only in the
presence of his wife, "I'd just as lief speak against her as wink if there was
anything to say. But I say now, as I said to you at first, she aint one of
the common sort. I thought well of her at first, and I think better of her
now since she's doing so well by you. But I suppose marrying a woman situated