8. My friend comes home and finds his dressing-gown and slippers in
front of the fire. He is tired and cross, and doesn't want to sling
ashes nor bang a coal-hod. But the sight of the fire makes him feel
better at once, and if there be no fire, there are no ashes. He sits in
front of a coke fire in a grate. His little girl brings his slippers and
carries off his shoes--or carries off one shoe and one slipper. Then he
falls to thinking that girls are poor property as compared with boys,
but that any kind of children are a pretty good investment against one's
old age. His increasing wonder is that the whole state of things is so
natural. His wife takes comfort in having him in the same room with her.
When he is reading and she is darning socks, she is the very embodiment
of the fine French expression "I am content." She is not as beautiful as
she once was. But
ALL THE ELEMENTS OF HER BEAUTY
are still present, and with a return of the flesh she has lost in hard
work she will have all her looks. A handsome woman is just as handsome
to a man as a handsome girl is to a green young man like Mr.
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