Of the pleasures of house-cleaning, I had at length a surfeit; when a ring, which I knew among all others, surprised me.

I looked at the clock.

It was past four, and the kitchen still in confusion, and the hearth cold.
I sank in a chair-in a swoon from sheer exhaustion.

When I awoke to consciousness, an overturned pale of water was being absorbed by my clothing, my nose was rejecting with violent aversion the pungency of a bottle of prime Durham mustard, to which Kitty had applied as the best substitute for salts which the kitchen afforded; and my husband, carpet-bag and cane in hand, was pushing his way toward me with more haste than good speed, as the obstacles witnessed, which he encountered and overturned.
I was confined to my room a week--which I could not conceal from Mr.
Smith.

But he does not even yet know the whole amount of the breakage, and, thank fortune, he is too much of a man to ask.