and that I never admit within my slipper day
the smallest intention of reading. My castle
of indolence owes nothing to the printer. No
Spanish church door can show a lazier biped
than I am, advisedly, on a slipper day. I
am laid up in ordinary. I lounge from the
bench under the lime, to the lawn. The
gardener, who is cutting the grass under the
burning sun, imagines I am boring myself
horribly, because I set leaves floating upon the
fish-pond, and lie watching the tiny eddies
which master them, and am next engrossed
with the flittings of a dragon-fly. His pitying
eye is upon me while I lift the lilies and gaze
into their yellow cups, and drop them again,
leaving the bees free access. I can count the
peaches ripening upon the red wall. The
tomatoes at the wall's base remind me of
something I have to say to Mrs. Goldencurls about
dinner—at lunch time will do.

I have resources enough left. I am keeping
back the poultry-yard. I haven't seen the
cucumbers. The plants I saw potted out, are
awaiting my visit. How much milk has the
cow been yielding? Gossip with the groom.
Mrs. Goldencurls has not made her appearance
yet, in her round gipsy hat, to the utter
confusion of the gardener, who, I am sure, would
be grateful to her if she would speak to him
in a severer voice. The morning flies away. I
am dozing in the acacia bower, and am restless
in my half-sleep, with flies tickling my cheeks
and temples. A silvery little laugh awakes
me, and I catch a certain lady, with a guilty
feather in her hand, who has been enacting
the part of fly. I am good enough to be
sportively angry: and to protest that her ladyship
may eat luncheon alone. Hereupon, Mrs.
Goldencurls acts the commanding queen;
stamps the impossible little feet that, cased
in bronze slippers, look like June flies; and
beckoning with the feather, commands her
slave to follow. Who follows.

Fruit for luncheon, and plenty of it; the cake
Mrs. Goldencurls has made; the dainty
sandwiches she has cut; the little cider-cup she
has made, just enough for two, with her lips
put to it now and then for sweetening. It
may by this time appear to the reader that the
slipper day of which I am now noting a few of
the salient points, belongs essentially to the
opening days of married life: to the sweet time
when the bride is settling into the wife, and
has just ceased to cry on her lord's departure
to business in the morning. Well, a slipper
day IS most enjoyable in this May-time of
connubial life; but the slippers need not be
thrown away when the wedding-gown has been
cut up for the children. I have two little heads
of golden curls, and I am not by any means
inclined to throw my slippers away, and
forswear an idle day henceforth. I still find
myself pressed to give up "the nasty city" for an
extra four-and-twenty hours; and the reader
has been confidentially admitted to perceive
that Mrs. Goldencurls is playful enough to wake
me with a feather in the acacia arbour. Likewise,
she picks my strawberries, and sprinkles
them with sugar, and opens the ball by tasting
them for me: taking care still (as her wont
was when we were a bridal pair in the Isle
of Wight), to pop the first into my mouth,
with her own fingers.

I am good enough to listen, over luncheon,
to the lighter stories of domestic management,
or to the gossip from the near township. Mrs.
Cousens came down yesterday for the first time.
Ralph's good-for-nothing son, who opened his
career of infamy by breaking the doctor's bell,
has just come back from the Cape, and not
in the least improved. Mr. Silenus was seen
driving home, tipsy again, last night. Some
night Mr. S. will break his neck. There is no
more beer in the house. The luncheon,
seasoned with this light discourse, which I like,
as tending to carry a man away from his own
selfish matters, is got through. I run my eye
vacantly, musingly, along the backs of the books
in the library. I muster the energy on occasions,
to pull down a volume, but I never go beyond
the title-page before I put it back again. My
wife tells me it is more than my place is worth,
to lay a finger on the plants; although when I
return home very tired from the city, and the
gardener has neglected his duties (being much
of Mr. Silenus's way of thinking), I am not
refused the privilege of watering the garden.

The afternoon slips away. Slipping away is
the feeling proper to a slipper day. I have left
my watch hanging in my dressing-room. O
yes, I dare say!  I am allowed in the kitchen
today, but sometimes I am chased out of it—when
I am not wanted to plant my heavy forefinger
upon the string, in order that Mrs. Goldencurls
may tie down the jelly tight. I have been
made useful in the shelling of peas before now,
but have ever protested, as I protest now, that
the dignity of manhood does not appear
impressively in the process.

Getting through the afternoon!  I shall be
left, at the end of the day, wondering how the
time managed to escape, even without croquet
or bowls. I return to observe whether the big
fish I saw under the water-lilies is still lazily
balancing himself there, until the gloaming
shall usher him to his feast of flies. Boswell,
diving for pebbles, is diverting for half an hour.
I compare my knowledge of the notes of birds
with that of the gardener. The swallows whirl
under my eaves, and I gaze pensively at them;
then the odours of coming dinner steal through
the kitchen windows into the stable-yard, where
I deprecate the waste of corn and hay with
Reuben the groom, who is quite certain that
no horse was ever kept in prime condition so
cheaply as mine.

Henceforth my idle day is filled, for Mrs.
Goldencurls is always quoting Lady Mary
Wortley Montague:  " The most trivial
concerns of economy become noble and elegant
when exalted by sentiments of affection; to
prepare a meal is not merely giving orders to
my cook; it is an amusement to regale the
object I dote on."  Hearing my voice in the
stable-yard, her golden head appears at the
kitchen window, and a tomato is held up, in