“Just, just! We can’t go out for a walk together but he shouts, ‘How do? Fine day, mates!’ to the drivers of the hackney cabs across the promenade; and the joy of his life is to get up at seven in the morning and go down to the quay before breakfast to keep tally with a chalk for the fishermen counting their herrings out of the boats into the barrels.” “Not a bit changed, then, since he went away?” said Jenny, before the glass. “Not a bit; and because I asked him to know his place, and if he is a gentleman to behave as a gentleman and speak as a gentleman and not make so easy with such as don’t respect him any the better for it, he turns on me and tells me I’ve only married him for his money.” “Dreadful!” said Jenny, fixing her fringe. “And is this the old sweetheart you have waited ten years for?” “Indeed, it is.” “And now that he has come back and you’ve married him, he has parted from you in ten days?” “Yes; and it will be the talk of the island--indeed it will.” “Shocking! And so he has left you here on your honeymoon without a penny to bless yourself?” “Oh, for the matter of that, he fixed something on me before the wedding--a jointure, the advocates called it.” “Terrible! Let me see. He’s the one who sent you presents from America?” “Oh; he piled presents enough on me. It’s the way of the men: the stingiest will do that. They like to think they’re such generous creatures. But let a poor woman count on it, and she’ll soon be wakened from her dream. ‘You married me for my money--deny it?’” “Fearful!” Jenny was leaning her forehead against the window sash, and looking vacantly out on the bay. Nelly observed her a moment, stopped suddenly in the tale of her troubles, and said, in another voice, “Jenny Crow, I believe you are laughing at me. It’s always the way with you. You can take nothing seriously.” Jenny turned back to the room with a solemn face, and said, “Nellie, if you waited ten years for your husband, I suppose that he waited ten years for you.” “I suppose he did.” “And, if he is the same man as he was when he went away, I suppose his love is the same?” “Then how _could_ he say such things?” “And, if he is the same, and his love is the same, isn’t it possible that somebody else is different?” “Now, Jenny Crow, you are going to say it’s all my fault?” “Not all, Nelly. Something has come between you.” “It’s the money. Oh, Jenny, if you ever marry, marry a poor man, and then he can’t fling it in your face that you are poorer than he.” “No; it can’t be the money, Nelly, for the money is his, and yet it hasn’t changed him. And, Nelly, isn’t it a good thing in a rich man not to turn his back on his old poor comrades--not to think because he has been in the sun that people are black who are only in the shade--not to pretend to have altered his skin because his coat has changed--isn’t it?” “I see what you mean. You mean that I’ve driven my husband away with my bad temper.”