“My dear,” said Josiah Birdwood one day at table, “my dear, I think Maggie Finch is just about your size and build.” “Maggie Finch!—and who is she?” “I mean the girl at Miss Thomas’s, the dressmaker’s.” “Maggie Finch, indeed!” exclaimed Eliza, turning first red, then white. “And pray, what do you know about”—witheringly—“Maggie Finch?” “Oh, nothing, my dear, only she is in Miss Thomas’s shop.” “And what do _you_ know of Miss Thomas’s shop?” “Why not, my dear? You go to Mr. Gardener’s—Mr. Gardener the tailor, I mean.” “Of course, I do. I have tailor-made dresses.” “Then why should not I go to the milliner’s to have a milliner-made suit?” “It is preposterous. Maggie Finch, indeed! How do you know she is a Maggie?” “Miss Thomas calls her so. Besides——” “Well?” sternly eyeing him. “I got her the situation.” “Oh! I see! you got her the situation.” “Yes. Her poor father——” “I want to hear nothing of the poor father; it is poor Maggie you think of. I see all, clear as daylight—a Finch and a Birdwood match much better than a Gubbins and a Birdwood.” Then she burst into tears. “My dear, be reasonable, and—kindly give me a spoonful of gravy; my bacon is dry.” “How can you! How can you! Heartless, cruel man! Oh that I had married a commercial traveller!” “A bagman, my dear!” “You need not open your mouth, nostrils, and eyes with such a snorting affectation of surprise. I said it—a commercial traveller.” “I did not know, my dear——” “No. You did not know that I had a—a tender corner in my heart, a general predilection for commercials. They go about in flights, like humming-birds in the Brazilian forests.” “Have you been in Brazil, dear?” “No, I have not; but I have read of them. Living—animated jewels they are.” “Which? The bagmen or the humming-birds?” “I won’t speak to you any more. You purposely misunderstand me to insult me, that you may go off to your Maggie Finches.” “There is only one, dear.” “And so much the worse. You focus, you concentrate, on that wretched object the admiration, the love, of which I am bereaved. If you go gallivanting and meandering round dressmakers’ assistants, I can do the same. I will not be left out in the cold for any Maggie Finches, I can tell you. There are plenty of bagmen, as you call them—commercials is their proper designation—who would be only too glad, too proud, to lick the dust off my feet.” “My dear, you are hot.” “I have occasion to be hot.” “And my tea is cold.” “This is an outrage!”