SOPER'S FATAL ERROR.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2146, 19 November 1875, Page 4

SOPER'S FATAL ERROR.

Mr Sopor's wife has been very sick for some weeks; but, although extremely reduced in body and mind, there is still enough of the true woman remaining in her, which led her last Monday, in a faint, whisper, to ask her husband, who had entered the sick room with a funeral cast of features, what was the news.

"Well," answered Mr Soper, sitting uneasily down on the extrome edge.of a chair, and balancing his hat on his fingers by the brim, "there aiu't nothing to speak of n p'ticler. S'pose you heard of Miss Cole's death; she was taken the same time you was." " I should think, James," said , Mrs Sopor, with a feeble emphasis, " that if you couldn't find something more cheerful to say to your poor, sick wife, you'd hold you. tongue.'' " Cert'nly," said Mr Soper, meekly, "only news is so scarse. Lemme see," he continued, looking thoughtfully into the crown of his hat, as if he had a reserved fund of gossip therein," you heard 'bout Mathy Carter's breakin' her leg." A snappish nod of the head from the invalid signified to Mr Soper that he was on dangerous ground; but after a moment's reflection he brightened visibly as he said : -

"You orter ben to town meetin' a Mond'y. The town's voted to have a new hearse, an' I.never was so glad of anythink in all my life." "James Edward Soper," whispered his wife, " with a painful intensity, " be you a nat'ral born fool, or be you a lookin' forrard to gettin'-rid of me ? "

As the later view had never presented itself to Mr Soper in the light of his wife's enquiry, he looked very much subdued, and scratched his head with an air of painful abstractien, as Mrs Soper said again with a tearful voice: ; " Oh, you can go.. If you can't spare a few moments to set with me, an' ifes' giv' me some little interestin' news~l don't want you to stay agin your inclination,' she continued with the sign of a martyr. Mr Soper hastily expressed his willingness to remain and desire to please:; so, after a brief interval of thought, Jie continued, reflectively: . : 'Well, lemme think. I was over to the Widder Stacy's las' night, to see if I couldn'tjmake a trade for a Jersey hiefer ; an' I tell you, i:Myi-ia,' said Mr Sqper, enthusiastically, "if she ain't a harnsum critter, I never see one.'

An ominous, light appeared in Mrs Soper's. sunken eyes; and if her husband had been observing closely, he would have seen a restless motion of the hands, indicative of an apparent desire to make a personal attack upon some one or something ; but he saw nothing and continued: She's just about the right size, an' her skin's as white as snow. She's got the pootiest leg?,' continued the unreflecting Mr Soper, with a descriptive motion of the hand; ' an' when you come to talk about shape—why, M'ria,' said Mr Sope.r, rising from his chair in his warmth, 'she'll measure two foot across the breast '

The scream which came from the afflicted invalid at this juncture was of such a piercing shrillness that Mr Soper placed his fingers in his ears, and Mrs tSoper's mamma, who was in the next room, appeared on the scene in the twinkling of an eye.

"Oh, you awful brute!" she exclaimed as she bathed her daughter's brow with hair oil in mistake for camphor, while the wretched man feebly endeavored to explain that he was only telling Mrs Soper about a Jersey hiefer that'he was going to buy.

" There, ma," said Mrs Soper with a gasp. " I'm better now."

" You'd better leave the room," said the matron, with a world of significant wrath in her eye, and the unfortunate Soper departed, muttering as he slammed the outside door behind him, that he'd be master of his own house some day; but he hasn't been yet, for Mrs Soper has recovered, and her mother has taken up a permanent residence with them.

To this day they don't speak to the Widow Stacy, and Mr Soper's reiterated explanation has always been received in dignified and incredulous silence.

The dramatic editor of the Paris Figaro, in explaining Shakspeare to his readers, says that when Hamlet called Ophelia " a green girl," he meant simply that she was a seller of vegetables. . Motheb's Hope.—A son-in-law.