Domestic. A man meets and old friend on the street and accompanies him home to dinner. Unhappy himself with a hypochondriac wife, he is delighted to see his friend's happy wife and to find out that she was cured from a similar conviction of her imminent death by a very aggravating maid. Covetousness of her mistress' husband as an effective trigger. Slight; smug tone in relation to female illness, etc. (PB)