"I dare say her husband is a rich man," I said.

"He is not as poor as your husband, at any rate," Ernest replied.
"But rich or poor I am determined not to sit looking on while you
exert yourself so far beyond your strength. Just think, dear, suppose
for fifty or a hundred or two hundred dollars a year you could buy a
sweet, cheerful, quiet tone of mind, would you hesitate one moment to
do so? And you can do it if you will. You are not ill-tempered but
quick-tempered; the irritability which annoys you so is a physical
infirmity which will disappear the moment you cease to be goaded into
it by that exacting mistress you have hitherto been to yourself."

All this sounded very plausible while Ernest was talking, but the
moment I got home I snatched up my work from mere force of habit.

"I may as well finish this as it is begun," I said to myself, arid
the stitches flew from my needle like sparks of fire. Little Ernest
came and begged for a story, but I put him off. Then Una wanted to
sit in my lap, but I told her I was too busy. In the course of an
hour the influence of the fresh air and Ernest's talk had nearly lost
their power over me; my thread kept breaking, the children leaned on
and tired me, the baby woke up and cried, and I got all out of
patience.

"Do go away, Ernest," I said, "and let mamma have a little peace.
Don't you see how busy I am? Go and play with Una like a good boy."
But he would not go, and kept teasing Una till she too, began to cry,
and she and baby made a regular concert of it.