"You ought to be very rich, Mr. Caudle. I wonder who'd lend you five pounds? But so it is: a wife may work and may slave! Ha, dear! the many things that might have been done with five pounds. As if people picked up money in the street! But you always were a fool, Mr. Caudle! I've wanted a black satin gown these three years, and that five pounds would have entirely bought it. But it's no matter how I go,--not at all. Everybody says I don't dress as becomes your wife-- and I don't; but what's that to you, Mr. Caudle? Nothing. Oh, no! you can have fine feelings for everybody but those belonging to you. I wish people knew you, as I do--that's all. You like to be called liberal--and your poor family pays for it. "All the girls want bonnets, and where they're to come from I can't tell. Half five pounds would have bought 'em--but now they must go without. Of course, THEY belong to you: and anybody but your own flesh and body, Mr. Caudle! "The man called for the water-rate to-day; but I should like to know how people are to pay taxes, who throw away five pounds to every fellow that asks them? "Perhaps you don't know that Jack, this morning, knocked his shuttlecock through his bedroom window. I was going to send for the glazier to mend it; but after you lent that five pounds I was sure we couldn't afford it. Oh, no! the window must go as it is; and pretty weather for a dear child to sleep with a broken window. He's got a cold already on his lungs, and I shouldn't at all wonder if that broken window settled him. If the dear boy dies, his death will be upon his father's head; for I'm sure we can't now pay to mend windows. We might though, and do a good many more things too, if people didn't throw away their five pounds. "Next Tuesday the fire-insurance is due. I should like to know how it's to be paid? Why, it can't be paid at all! That five pounds would have more than done it--and now, insurance is out of the question. And there never were so many fires as there are now. I shall never close my eyes all night,--but what's that to you, so people can call you liberal, Mr. Caudle? Your wife and children may all be burnt alive in their beds--as all of us to a certainty shall be, for the insurance MUST drop. And after we've insured for so many years! But how, I should like to know, are people to insure who make ducks and drakes of their five pounds? "I did think we might go to Margate this summer. There's poor little Caroline, I'm sure she wants the sea. But no, dear creature! she must stop at home--all of us must stop at home--she'll go into a consumption, there's no doubt of that; yes--sweet little angel!--I've made up my mind to lose her, NOW. The child might have been saved; but people can't save their children and throw away their five pounds too.