“Pah!  I’d as lief drink so much molasses.  But here’s the sugar bowl.  Sweeten it to your taste.”

Canning helped himself to more sugar.  As he did so his wife noticed that his hand slightly trembled, and also that his brow was drawn down, and his lips more arched than usual.

“It’s a little matter to get angry about,” she thought to herself.  “Things are coming to a pretty pass, if I’m not to be allowed to speak.”

The meal was finished in silence.  Margaret felt in no humour to break the oppressive reserve, although she would have been glad, indeed, to have heard a pleasant word from the lips of her husband.  As for Canning, he permitted himself to brood over the words and manner of his wife, until he became exceedingly fretted.  They were so unkind and so uncalled for.  The evening passed unsocially.  But morning found them both in a better state of mind.  Sleep has a wonderful power in restoring to the mind its lost balance, and in calming down our blinding passions.  During the day, our thoughts and feelings, according with our natural state, are more or less marked by the disturbances that selfish purposes ever bring; but in sleep, while the mind rests and our governing ends lie dormant, we come into purer spiritual associations, and the soul, as well as the body, receives a healthier tone.

The morning, therefore, found Canning and his wife in better states of mind.  They were as kind and as affectionate as usual in their words and conduct, although, when they sat down to the breakfast table, they each experienced a slight feeling of coldness on being reminded, too sensibly, of the unpleasant occurrence of the previous evening.  Margaret thought she would be sure to please her husband in his coffee, and therefore put into his cup an extra quantity of sugar, making it so very sweet that he could with difficulty swallow it.  But a too vivid recollection of what had taken place on the night before, caused him to be silent about it.  The second cup was still sweeter.  Canning managed to sip about one-third of this, but his stomach refused to take any more.  Noticing that her husband’s coffee, an article of which he was very fond, stood, nearly cup-full, beside his plate, after he had finished his breakfast, Margaret said—­

“Didn’t your coffee suit you?”

“It was very good; only a little too sweet.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?” she returned, in a tone that showed her to be hurt at this reaction upon what she had said on the previous evening.  “Give me your cup, and let me pour you out some more.”

“No, I thank you, Margaret, I don’t care about any more.”

“Yes, you do.  Come, give me your cup.  I shall be hurt if you don’t.  I’m sure there is no necessity for drinking the coffee, if not to your taste.  I don’t know what’s come over you, James.”

“And I’m sure I don’t know what’s come over you,” Canning thought, but did not say.  He handed up his cup, as his wife desired.  After filling it with coffee, she handed it back, and then reached him the sugar and cream.