mind had taken no note of time, and two hours passed with the
rapidity of a few minutes.
“I don’t exactly comprehend this,” said my husband, as he sat down
with his old friend, to dine off of broiled steak and potatoes, at
half-past two o’clock.
“It’s all the fault of the ‘Wandering Jew!’” I replied, making an
effort to drive away, with a smile, the red signs of mortification
that were in my face.
“The Wandering Jew!” returned my husband, looking mystified.
“Yes, the fault lies with that imaginary personage,” said I,
“strange as it may seem.” And then I related the mishaps of the
morning. For desert, we had some preserved fruit and cream, and a
hearty laugh over the burnt puddings and disfigured turkey.
Poor Kitty couldn’t survive the mortification. She never smiled
again in my house; and, at the close of the week, removed to another
home.
CHAPTER III.
LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT.
“THE oil’s out, mum,” said Hannah, the domestic who succeeded Kitty,
pushing her head into the room where I sat sewing.
“It can’t be,” I replied.
“Indade, mum, and it is. There isn’t the full of a lamp left,” was
the positive answer.
“Then, what have you done with it?” said I, in a firm voice. “It
isn’t four days since a gallon was sent home from the store.”
“Four days! It’s more nor a week, mum!”
“Don’t tell me that, Hannah,” I replied, firmly; “for I know better.
I was out on last Monday, and told Brown to send us home a gallon.”
“Sure, and it’s burned, mum, thin! What else could go with it?”
“It never was burned in our lamps,” said I, in answer to this.
“You’ve either wasted it, or given it away.”
At this Hannah, as in honor bound, became highly indignant, and
indulged in certain impertinences which I did not feel inclined to
notice.
But, as the oil was all gone, and no mistake; and, as the prospect
of sitting in darkness was not, by any means, an agreeable one—the
only remedy was to order another gallon.
Something was wrong; that was clear. The oil had never been burned.
That evening, myself and husband talked over the matter, and both of
us came to the conclusion, that it would never do. The evil must be
remedied. A gallon of oil must not again disappear in four days.
“Why,” said my husband, “it ought to last us at least a week and a
half.”
“Not quite so long,” I replied. “We burn a gallon a week.”
“Not fairly, I’m inclined to think. But four days is out of all
conscience.”
I readily assented to this, adding some trite remark about the
unconscionable wastefulness of domestics.
On the next morning, as my husband arose from bed, he shivered in
