"'Then you go not _alone_,' said Emma; 'if you have sinned you have also _suffered_.'
"'Yes, and it's but right he should,' said a rough voice, as the door was rudely burst, and a stout man advanced to make him prisoner.
"Lionel had prepared himself for _this_. A flash! a report! the lovers lay side by side. They were _both prisoners_, but _Death_ was the _jailer_!"
"Mrs. Joseph Smith was the envy of all the wives in the neighborhood. Such a _pattern_ husband as Smith was, to be sure! He never went across the room without hugging his wife first, and language would fail to describe their melancholy partings when he 'tore himself away,' to go down to the store. If the wind got round east after he had left, he always ran back to tell her to put on an extra petticoat; he cut up her food in homoeopathic infinitessimal bits, to assist her digestion, and if she wanted an ice-cream or a lobster-salad in the middle of the night, it was forthcoming. Did she have the headache, the blinds were closed, the bell was muffled, and he was the most wretched of Smiths till she was convalescent. He selected her shoe-strings and corset-lacings himself, and when her health was too delicate to admit of her accompanying him to church, he always promised to sit in the middle of the house, so that in case the galleries should fall he needn't be made any _flatter_ than he was by nature.
"The present Mrs. Smith was his _fourth_ wife, and as Joseph had been heard to say, that 'the more he loved his Elenore, the more he loved his Nancy, and the more he loved his Nancy, the more he loved his Julia and Mary,' any one with half an eye, could see how peculiarly felicitious _Mrs. Mary Smith's_ position must be!
"There never was a sweet without a bitter; and so she found out, when Joseph announced to her that he 'must leave the little heaven of her smiles, to go on a short 'business trip.' Mary went into the strongest kind of hysterics, and burnt feathers and sal-volatile couldn't bring her out of them, till he swore on the dictionary to telegraph to her every hour, and carry his life preserver and a box of Russia salve.
"On arriving at the depot, a gentleman requested leave 'to place a lady under his protection,' who was travelling in the same direction. Smith looked at her; she was young and pretty, and dressed in deep mourning. 'A widow!' said Smith to himself. 'Certainly, sir, with pleasure.'