"Pull the tap out of his whiskey-barrel.'
"'I would, if I dared.'
"'She'd better not try that, I can tell her.'
"'What would you do, if I did?' she asked.
"'Buy two more in its place, and make you drink one of them.'
"'O dear! I must beg to be excused from that. But, indeed, James, I wish you would let it run. I'm really ashamed to have it said, that my husband keeps a barrel of whiskey in the house.'
"'Nonsense, Sally! you don't know what you are talking about.'
"'Well, perhaps I don't,' the wife said, and remained silent, for there was a half-concealed rebuke in her husband's tone of voice.
"I saw that I could say no more about the whiskey-barrel, and so I dropped the subject, and, in a short time, after having finished my business with Mr. Bradly, went away.
"'Well, how comes on the whiskey-barrel?' I said to him, about a month after, as we met on the road.