46 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



conceive ; ' why, there's not a word of farming in it this 

 week," remarked the wife of my bosom at our matu- 

 tinal meal. 



"Pity she hadn't got her tongue burnt with the fish !" 

 we mutter inwardly, as we notice a sudden start back 

 of the head, and a settled frown, that fungus of matri- 

 monial life which appeareth only when the rose-leaves 

 of the honeymoon are about half reduced to mould. 



Whereas our outward utterance is, " Well, I will, my 

 dear, for the future he rnore practical and less poetical, 

 as I hinted to your papa, when he seemed to want the 

 settlements loaded a little too much at one end, like a 

 Donnybrook shillelagh." " Yes, pappy," chimed in a 

 youngster ; " why don't him write something about 

 shorthorns ? Me thought him was going, him said oder 

 day ?" Well, my precious Herefordshire prattler, so I 

 meant to do; but it's not altogether now the cheeriest 

 of subjects. What a fright one got the other evening, 

 when the unthinking servant startled our siesta with 

 the " Please, sir, David's come to see you ! " Where- 

 upon the over-anxious Master David nailed one further 

 with the announcement that " the bull was bad ! " Eh ! 

 my eye ! what didn't I give for that said bull ? and to 

 think his turn is come ! But happily not the plague 

 symptoms, so far as I can make them out from the 

 various printed directions. Can it be a cold, or what ? 

 We prescribe an anti-inflammation treatment, and 

 dispatch back the consternated youth to sit the night 

 long by the couch of his treasured pet. When the 

 coveted morning came, after an anxious night of start- 

 ling dreams, with a foreboding heart I bent my steps 

 to the further farm, meeting the affrighted youngster 

 at full gallop on the bailiff's hack, to inform me that 



