QUARRELS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 242, 27 January 1875, Page 3

QUARRELS.

These are ugly things, yet they will happen, sometimes, even in the best-regulated families. But very often they arise from mere trifles, an illustration of which is given in the following old story, which contains so good a moral that it will bear to be re-published once more, if not several times: — A loving, newly-married couple sat down to tea for the first time in their new home. Happy as a pair of birds, they were billing and cooing to each other, when, seeing something run out of the chimney corner, they exclaimed, one of them : “ Oh! see that rat,” and the other, “ Oh! see that mouse.” “ Oh 1 no, it was a rat.” “ No; it was a mouse.” “ Not at all, my dear; I saw it, and I am sure it was a rat.” ** And I saw it, too, and I know it was a mouse.” “ I say it was a rat.” “ I say it was a mouse.” « ’Twas a rat.” “ ’Twas a mouse. ’ “ ’Twas a rat.” “ ’Twas a mouse.” And they kept it up until both were in a passion, and the bride in her tears and her anger s •Mfchft would go home to her parents, and awaywhe went. A few days or weeks of reflection showed them both their exceeding folly, and they readily yielded to the suggestion of friends that they were a couple of little fools, and had bettor come together again, which they did. Once more seated at their cheerful tea-table, in the cosiest of rooms, and happy in the thought that they were restored to their own sweet home, they looked across the table into each other’s eyes, and one of them said, laughingly, to the other : “ Was it not foolish for us to make such a big fuss about that good-for-nothing little mouse ?” « Why, dear, it wasn’t a mouse—it was a rat.” “ No, love, it was a mouse. I saw it myself.” “ And so did I, and lam sure it was a rat.” And so at it they went again, one as positive and unyielding as the other, till they were as mad as before, and the wife went off to her father, and that ended their living together*