"And if you only knew how ashamed and sorry I am!" he returned."Iought to have seen how you taxing and over-taxing yourself, doing your work and Martha's too.It must not go on so."By this time, with a veil over my face, he had got me downstairs and out into the air, which fanned my fiery cheeks and cooled my heated brain.It seemed to me that I have had all this tempest about nothing at all, and that with a character still so undisciplined, I was utterly unworthy to be either a wife or a mother.But when I tried to say so in broken words, Ernest comforted me with the gentleness and tenderness of a woman.
"Your character is not undisciplined, my darling," he said."Your nervous organization is very peculiar, and you have had unusual cares and trials from the beginning of our married life.I ought not to have confronted you with my father's debts at a moment when you had every reason to look forward to freedom from most petty economies and cares.""Don't say so," I interrupted."If you had not told me you had this draft on your resources I should have always suspected you of meanness.For you know, dear, you have kept me-that is to say-you 'could not help it, but I suppose men can't understand how many demands are made upon a mother for money almost every day.I got along very well till the children came, but since then it has been very hard.""Yes," he said, "I am sure it has.But let me finish what I was going to say.I want you to make a distinction for yourself, which I make for you, between mere ill-temper, and the irritability that is the result of a goaded state of the nerves.Until you do that, nothing can be done to relieve you from what I am sure, distresses and grieves you exceedingly.Now, I suppose that whenever you speak to me or the children in this irritated way you lose your own self-respect, for the time, at least, and feel degraded in the sight of God also.""Oh, Ernest! there are no words in any language that mean enough to express the anguish I feel when I speak quick, impatient words to you, the one human being in the universe whom I love with all my heart and soul, and to my darling little children who are almost as dear! I pray and mourn over it day and night.God only knows how Ihate myself on account of this one horrible sin!""It is a sin only as you deliberately and wilfully fulfill the conditions that lead to such results.Now I am sure if you could once make up your mind in the fear of God, never to undertake more work of any sort than you can carry on calmly, quietly, without hurry or flurry, and the instant you find yourself growing nervous and like one out of breath, would stop and take breath, you would find this simple, common-sense rule doing for you what no prayers or tears could ever accomplish.Will you try it for one month, my darling?""But we can't afford it," I cried, with almost a groan."Why, you have told me this very day that our expenses must be cut down, and now you want me to add to them by doing less work.But the work must be done.The children must be clothed, there is no end to the stitches to be taken for them, and your stockings must be mended-you make enormous holes in them! and you don't like it if you ever find a button wanting to a shirt or your supply of shirts getting low.""All you say may be very true," he returned, "but I am determined that you shall not be driven to desperation as you have been of late."By this time we had reached the house where his visit was to be made, and I had nothing to do but lean back and revolve all he had been saying, over and over again, and to see its reasonableness while Icould not see what was so be done for my relief.Ah, I have often felt in moments of bitter grief at my impatience with my children, that perhaps God pitied more than He blamed me for it! And now my dear husband was doing the same!
When Ernest had finished his visit we drove on again in silence.
At last, I asked:
"Do tell me, Ernest, if you worked out this problem all by yourself?"He smiled a little.
"No, I did not.But I have had a patient for two or three years whose case has interested me a good deal, and for whom I finally prescribed just as I have done for you.The thing worked like a charm, and she is now physically and morally quite well.
"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.
