Now, few so carefully cultivate the connubial garden, as to feel much surprise at the occasional sting of a homely nettle or two; but who ever expected, before entering that garden, to find himself pricked and lacerated by an insidious exotical “dear,” which he had been taught to believe only lived in a hothouse, along with myrtles and other tender and sensitive shrubs which poets appropriate to Venus? Nevertheless Parson Dale, being a patient man, and a pattern to all husbands, would have found no fault with his garden, though there had not been a single specimen of “dear,”—whether the dear humilis or the dear superba; the dear pallida, rubra, or nigra; the dear suavis or the dear horrida,—no, not a single “dear” in the whole horticulture of matrimony, which Mrs. Dale had not brought to perfection. But this was far from being the case; Mrs. Dale, living much in retirement, was unaware of the modern improvements, in variety of colour and sharpness of prickle, which have rewarded the persevering skill of our female florists.
CHAPTER IX.
In the cool of the evening Dr. Riccabocca walked home across the fields. Mr. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him half-way, and as they now turned back to the parsonage, they looked behind to catch a glimpse of the tall, outlandish figure, winding slowly through the path amidst the waves of the green corn.
“Poor man!” said Mrs. Dale, feelingly; “and the button was off his wristband! What a pity he has nobody to take care of him! He seems very domestic. Don’t you think, Charles, it would be a great blessing if we could get him a good wife?”
“Um,” said the parson; “I doubt if he values the married state as he ought.”
“What do you mean, Charles? I never saw a man more polite to ladies in my life.”
“Yes, but—”
“But what? You are always so mysterious, Charles dear.”
“Mysterious! No, Carry; but if you could hear what the doctor says of the ladies sometimes.”