Further Reminiscences. 125 



large pin-cushions, covered with yellow 

 satin trimmed with lace. One other comi- 

 cal incident of their early married days 

 his widow recalls with merriment. She 

 asked him for the tea caddy, and he con- 

 fessed at once that he had never owned 

 that necessary appendage. He directed 

 her, however, to pull out a drawer in his 

 wardrobe, "where he always kept his tea, so 

 as to have it handy." There, sure enough, 

 it was, lying loose among his white shirts, 

 and scattered all over the drawer. Happily 

 a very efficient maid, whom Mrs. Dixon's 

 mother had sent with her daughter from 

 Northamptonshire to the new home in 

 Doncaster, soon reduced all this chaos to 

 order. Not many days passed, however, 

 without her discovering that she had married 

 a man to whom incessant employment left 

 little time to bestow on his wife. What 

 between his long office hours in Messrs. 

 Baxter's law establishment and his literary 

 labours for the Doncaster Gazette, he seemed 

 quite to forget that his wife wanted any 

 amusement. She had long been the most 

 petted member of a large and happy family, 



