When he did so, he spoke with unusual emotion.
"Ah, my dear wife!" said he, leaning towards her and grasping her hand; "you know not how great a load you have taken from my heart.

The change you suggest is necessary; yet I never could have urged it; never could have asked you to give up this for an humbler dwelling.

How much rather would I elevate you to a palace!" "My husband! Why, why have you concealed this from me?
It was not true kindness," said Mrs.Wilkinson, in a slightly chiding voice.

"It is my province to stand, sustainingly, by your side; not to hang upon you, a dead weight." But we will not repeat all that was said.

Enough that, ere the evening, spent in earnest conversation, closed, all the preliminaries of an early removal and reduction of expenses were settled, and, when Wilkinson retired for the night, it was in a hopeful spirit.