Jessie by Walter Aimwell — Read

When Henry Hapley left his sister, after making the promise mentioned in the last chapter, he came to the conclusion, upon a few moments' reflection, that he had been coaxed into doing a foolish thing. The idea of loving Mrs. Allen seemed absurd; and as to pleasing her, he did not believe he could do it, if he should try as hard as possible. However, as he had made the promise, he finally concluded that he must try to keep it, at least for the week to which it was limited.

Jessie, in her conversation with her brother, had come very near to the true origin of Henry's troubles, though she knew but little of the facts in the case. The truth was, he did _not_ try to please his mistress, and it was mainly owing to this that he had become so unhappy. Mrs. Allen, like most other people, had her peculiarities. One of the most prominent of these was her extreme neatness. She carried this excellent virtue to excess. A grain of sand in the eye could hardly be more painful to her than was a grain of dirt on her floors. Everything about the premises that would bear contact with soap and water, had to undergo its regular ablution, even to the outside of the house. Her husband, sometimes, while witnessing the terrible scrubbings which were of almost daily occurrence, used pleasantly to remind her, by way of warning, of the good Dutch woman who scoured her floor until she tumbled through into the cellar. But her motto was, that "nothing is clean that can be made cleaner; " and so she patiently scrubbed on, in spite of the warning, wherever there was dirt, or even a "might, could, would or should have been," upon which to hang a suspicion.