Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-70.djvu/379

Rh loved Joanna; but when did a bewitched lover of fifty-five ever remonstrate with a handsome woman of twenty-five with any success?

Joanna was perverse and she was winnings with the result that Apostle Jones opened his purse-strings to an unheard-of extent, while he groaned in secret. But the time came when he was forced to take a stand. He had gone the rounds with new dresses and bonnets with what grace he could muster, he had quadruplicated some of the luxuries of Joanna's rooms—at a slightly reduced figure, it is true, owing to the quantity—without betraying too much annoyance, but when his provoking bride responded to his proposition to build her a separate home with the counter-proposition that he should build the separate home for Mother Evelyn and another larger house for herself and the two younger wives, he felt that indulgence had gone far enough, and no coaxing or cajoling could change his decision.

It was then the clouds began to form in threatening masses, for Joan knew that not to rule was to be ruled, and rallied her forces for the final battle. Nor did she scorn to enlist Sarah Mary and Christine as recruits; as for Mother Evelyn, she tried to keep the matter secret from her.

The voices of the other wives, while they added to the Apostle's annoyance, failed to move him, and when one day he brought home plans for a handsome residence over which, he assured her, she was to reign sole mistress, she planned a coup d'état.

And the domestic clouds whose gray masses had tempered the glare of the Apostle's happiness grew yet darker and more lowering.

What man can endure a bad cook? And when it comes to three bad cooks in regular succession, when one goes from burned potatoes to overdone beefsteak, and from overdone steak to sour bread in ceaseless rotation, and when to these unsavory compounds are added complaints and coaxings and tears; when to further embitter existence come memories of halcyon days when appetizing meals and deference were the rule—it is enough to rouse a man's ire and to ruin his digestion.

The Apostle was shrewd enough to know that Joanna was at the bottom of the trouble, but he was also shrewd enough to prefer that punishment for the offence should fall elsewhere. He could not help admiring the ingenuity of her little scheme, though the fact did not tend to allay his wrath.

He first attempted to put a stop to the matter by some sharp words to Sarah Mary and Christine, but the only result was an unusually large fall of tears. They fled at once to Joanna, and, comforted and laughed at by her, contrived as many culinary accidents as before.

The Apostle tried every known means of chastening refractory wives, save one, but to no purpose. The rebellion against his rightful authority still went on. He even thought of invoking the authority of