“There was ham, and corned beef too. I will not deny it; but—”
“Then, William, with what woman have you shared it?” demanded the young wife, drawing herself up to her full height, and fixing her dark, flashing eyes full upon him.
“Susan, I implore you, listen to me, and do not judge me too harshly. There was ham, but there were several German noblemen there too—Baron Sneeze of the Austrian legation, Count Pretzel, and a dozen more. The smell of meat inflamed them, and I fought my way through them in time to save only this from the wreck.”
He drew from his ulster-pocket something done up in a piece of paper, and handed it to his wife. She opened the package and saw that it contained what looked like a long piece of very highly polished ivory. Then her face softened, her lips trembled, and her eyes brimmed over with tears. “Forgive me, William, for my unjust suspicions,” she exclaimed, as she threw herself once more into his arms. “This mute ham-bone tells me far more strongly than any words of yours could the story of the Society reporter’s awful struggle for life.”
William kissed his young wife affectionately, and then sat down to the breakfast which she had prepared for him.
“I hope,” she said, cheerfully, as she took a dish of lobster salad from the oven, where it had been warmed over, “that you will keep a sharp lookout for quail this week. It would be nice to have one or two for our Christmas dinner. Of course we cannot afford corned beef and cabbage like those rich people whom you call by their first names when you write about them in the Sunday papers; but I do hope we will not be obliged to put up with cakes and pastry and such wretched stuff.”
“Quail!” exclaimed her husband; “they are so scarce and shy this winter that we are obliged to take setter-dogs with us to the entertainments at which they are served. But I will do my best, darling.”
As soon as William had gone to bed Susan took from its hiding-place the present which she had prepared for her husband, and proceeded to sew it to the inside of his ulster as a Christmas surprise for him. She sighed to think that it was the best she could afford this year. It was a useful rather than an ornamental gift—a simple rubber pocket, made from a piece of an old mackintosh, and intended for William to carry soup in.
But Susan had a bright, hopeful spirit, and a smile soon smoothed the furrows from her face as she murmured, “How nice it will be when William comes home with his new pocket filled with nice, warm, nourishing bouillon!” and then she glanced up from her work and saw that her daughter, little golden-haired Eva, had entered the room and was looking at her out of her great, truthful, deep-blue eyes.