Mr. Bradley's Jewel - Page 2

Bradley always calls her his jewel."

"I've heard of jewels," said Bessie, thinking of the two Thaddeus and she had begun their married life with, "but they've always seemed to me to be paste emeralds--awfully green, and not worth much."

"There's no paste emerald about Bradley's girl," said Thaddeus. "Why, he says that woman has been in Mrs. Bradley's employ for seven weeks now, and she hasn't broken a bit of china; never sweeps dust under the beds or bureaus; keeps the silver polished so that it looks as if it were solid; gets up at six every morning; cooks well; is civil, sober, industrious; has no hangers-on--"

"Is Mr. Bradley a realist or a romancer?" asked Bessie.

"Why do you ask that?" replied Thaddeus.

"That jewel story sounds like an Arabian Nights tale," said Bessie. "I don't believe that it is more than half true, and that half is exaggerated."

"Well, it is true," said Thaddeus. "And, what is more, the girl helps in the washing, plays with the children, and on her days out she stays at home and does sewing."

Bessie laughed. "She must be a regular Koh-i-noor," she said. "I suppose Mr. Bradley pays her a thousand dollars a month."

"No, he doesn't; he pays her twelve," said Thaddeus.

"Then he is just what I said he was," snapped Bessie--"a mean thing. The idea--twelve dollars a month for all that! Why, if she could prove she was all that you say she is, she could make ten times that amount by exhibiting herself. She is a curiosity. But if I were Mrs. Bradley I wouldn't have her in the house. So many virtues piled one on the other are sure to make an unsafe structure, and I believe some poor, miserable little vice will crop out somewhere and upset the whole thing."

"You are jealous," said Thaddeus; and then he went out.

The next day, meeting his friend Bradley on the street, Thaddeus greeted him with a smile, and said, "Mrs. Perkins thinks you ought to take up literature."

"Why so?" asked Bradley.

"She thinks De Foe and Scott and Dumas and Stevenson would be thrown into the depths of oblivion if you were to write up that jewel of yours," said Thaddeus. "She thinks your Mary is one of the finest, most imaginative creations of modern days."

"She doubts her existence, eh?" smiled Bradley.

"Well, she thinks she's more likely to be a myth than a Smith," said Thaddeus. "She told me to ask you if Mary has a twin-sister, and to say that if you hear of her having any relatives at all--and no domestic ever lived who hadn't--to send her their addresses. She'd like to employ a few."

"I am sorry Mrs. Perkins is so blinded by jealousy,"