“But, Lillie, please let me show you,” persisted John. “I’ve made it just as simple as can be.”
“I never had the least head for figures.”
“O John! now—I just—can’t—there now! Don’t bring that book now; it’ll just make me low-spirited and cross. I never had the least head for figures; mamma always said so; and if there is any thing that seems to me perfectly dreadful, it is accounts. I don’t think it’s any of a woman’s business—it’s all man’s work, and men have got to see to it. Now, please don’t,” she added, coming to him coaxingly, and putting her arm round his neck.
“But, you see, Lillie,” John persevered, in a pleading tone,—“you see, all these alterations that have been made in the house have involved very serious expenses; and then, too, we are living at a very different rate of expense from what we ever lived before”—
“There it is, John! Now, you oughtn’t to reproach me with it; for you know it was your own idea. I didn’t want the alterations made; but you would insist on it. I didn’t think it was best; but you would have them.”
“But, Lillie, it was all because you wanted them.”
“Well, I dare say; but I shouldn’t have wanted them if I thought it was going to bring in all this bother and trouble, and make me have to look over old accounts, and all such things. I’d rather never have had any thing!” And here Lillie began to cry.
“Come, now, my darling, do be a sensible woman, and not act like a baby.”
“There, John! it’s just as I knew it would be; I always said you wanted a different sort of a woman for a wife. Now, you knew when you took me that I wasn’t in the least strong-minded or sensible, but a poor little helpless thing; and you are beginning to get tired of me already. You wish you had married a woman like Grace, I know you do.”