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Her husband’s face was crimson; but Mr. Oakhurst’s countenance was quite calm and unmoved, as he gravely agreed with her, and walked by her side until they passed the little garden that he had admired. Here Mr. Oakhurst commanded a halt, and, going to the door, astounded the proprietor by a preposterously extravagant offer for a choice of the flowers. Presently he returned to the carriage with his arms full of roses, heliotrope, and verbena, and cast them in the lap of the invalid. While she was bending over them with childish delight, Mr. Oakhurst took the opportunity of drawing her husband aside.

“Perhaps,” he said in a low voice, and a manner quite free from any personal annoyance,–“perhaps it’s just as well that you lied to her as you did. You can say now that the pick-pocket was arrested the other day, and you got your money back.” Mr. Oakhurst quietly slipped four twenty-dollar gold-pieces into the broad hand of the bewildered Mr. Decker. “Say that–or any thing you like–but the truth. Promise me you won’t say that.”

The man promised. Mr. Oakhurst quietly returned to the front of the little carriage. The sick woman was still eagerly occupied with the flowers, and, as she raised her eyes to his, her faded cheek seemed to have caught some color from the roses, and her eyes some of their dewy freshness. But at that instant Mr. Oakhurst lifted his hat, and before she could thank him was gone.

I grieve to say that Mr. Decker shamelessly broke his promise. That night, in the very goodness of his heart and uxorious self-abnegation, he, like all devoted husbands, not only offered himself, but his friend and benefactor, as a sacrifice on the family-altar. It is only fair, however, to add that he spoke with great fervor of the generosity of Mr. Oakhurst, and dwelt with an enthusiasm quite common with his class on the mysterious fame and prodigal vices of the gambler.

“And now, Elsie dear, say that you’ll forgive me,” said Mr. Decker, dropping on one knee beside his wife’s couch. “I did it for the best. It was for you, dearey, that I put that money on them cards that night in ‘Frisco. I thought to win a heap–enough to take you away, and enough left to get you a new dress.”

Mrs. Decker smiled, and pressed her husband’s hand. “I do forgive you, Joe dear,” she said, still smiling, with eyes abstractedly fixed on the ceiling; “and you ought to be whipped for deceiving me so, you bad boy! and making me make such a speech. There, say no more about it. If you’ll be very good hereafter, and will just now hand me that cluster of roses, I’ll forgive you.” She took the branch in her angers, lifted the roses to her face, and presently said, behind their leaves,–

“Joe!”

“What is it, lovey?”

“Do you think that this Mr.–what do you call him?–Jack Oakhurst would have given that money back to you, if I hadn’t made that speech?”

“Yes.”

“If he hadn’t seen me at all?”

Mr. Decker looked up. His wife had managed in some way to cover up her whole face with the roses, except her eyes, which were dangerously bright.

“No! It was you, Elsie–it was all along of seeing you that made him do it.”

“A poor sick woman like me?”

“A sweet, little, lovely, pooty Elsie–Joe’s own little wifey! how could he help it?”

Mrs. Decker fondly cast one arm around her husband’s neck, still keeping the roses to her face with the other. From behind them she began to murmur gently and idiotically, “Dear, ole square Joey. Elsie’s oney booful big bear.” But, really, I do not see that my duty as a chronicler of facts compels me to continue this little lady’s speech any further; and, out of respect to the unmarried reader, I stop.

Nevertheless, the next morning Mrs. Decker betrayed some slight and apparently uncalled for irritability on reaching the Plaza, and presently desired her husband to wheel her back home. Moreover, she was very much astonished at meeting Mr. Oakhurst just as they were returning, and even doubted if it were he, and questioned her husband as to his identity with the stranger of yesterday as he approached. Her manner to Mr. Oakhurst, also, was quite in contrast with her husband’s frank welcome. Mr. Oakhurst instantly detected it. “Her husband has told her all, and she dislikes me,” he said to himself, with that fatal appreciation of the half-truths of a woman’s motives that causes the wisest masculine critic to stumble. He lingered only long enough to take the business address of the husband, and then lifting his hat gravely, without looking at the lady, went his way. It struck the honest master-carpenter as one of the charming anomalies of his wife’s character, that, although the meeting was evidently very much constrained and unpleasant, instantly afterward his wife’s spirits began to rise. “You was hard on him, a leetle hard; wasn’t you, Elsie?” said Mr. Decker deprecatingly. “I’m afraid he may think I’ve broke my promise.”–“Ah, indeed!” said the lady indifferently. Mr. Decker instantly stepped round to the front of the vehicle. “You look like an A 1 first-class lady riding down Broadway in her own carriage, Elsie,” said he. “I never seed you lookin’ so peart and sassy before.”