“Well, what’s in your letter, Bella, my dear?” says he: “you’re a long time spelling it over.” “Won’t you shave this morning, Sir Condy?” says she, and put the letter into her pocket. “I shaved the day before yesterday,” says he, “my dear, and that’s not what I’m thinking of now; but any thing to oblige you, and to have peace and quietness, my dear”--and presently I had the glimpse of him at the cracked glass over the chimney-piece, standing up shaving himself to please my lady. But she took no notice, but went on reading her book, and Mrs. Jane doing her hair behind. “What is it you’re reading there, my dear?--phoo, I’ve cut myself with this razor; the man’s a cheat that sold it me, but I have not paid him for it yet: what is it you’re reading there? did you hear me asking you, my dear?” “The Sorrows of Werter,” replies my lady, as well as I could hear. “I think more of the sorrows of Sir Condy,” says my master, joking like. “What news from Mount Juliet’s Town?” “No news,” says she, “but the old story over again, my friends all reproaching me still for what I can’t help now.” “Is it for marrying me?” said my master, still shaving: “what signifies, as you say, talking of that, when it can’t be help’d now?” With that she heaved a great sigh, that I heard plain enough in the passage. “And did not you use me basely, Sir Condy,” says she, “not to tell me you were ruined before I married you?” “Tell you, my dear,” said he; “did you ever ask me one word about it? and had not you friends enough of your own, that were telling you nothing else from morning to night, if you’d have listened to them slanders?” “No slanders, nor are my friends slanderers; and I can’t bear to hear them treated with disrespect as I do,” says my lady, and took out her pocket handkerchief; “they are the best of friends; and if I had taken their advice--. But my father was wrong to lock me up, I own; that was the only unkind thing I can charge him with; for if he had not locked me up, I should never have had a serious thought of running away as I did.” “Well, my dear,” said my master, “don’t cry and make yourself uneasy about it now, when it’s all over, and you have the man of your own choice, in spite of ‘em all.” “I was too young, I know, to make a choice at the time you ran away with me, I’m sure,” says my lady, and another sigh, which made my master, half shaved as he was, turn round upon her in surprise. “Why, Bell,” says he, “you can’t deny what you know as well as I do, that it was at your own particular desire, and that twice under your own hand and seal expressed, that I should carry you off as I did to Scotland, and marry you there.” “Well, say no more about it, Sir Condy,” said my lady, pettish like--“I was a child then, you know.” “And as far as I know, you’re little better now, my dear Bella, to be talking in this manner to your husband’s _face_; but I won’t take it ill of you, for I know it’s