All this delighted Edward extremely to hear, and he said that things were going on beautifully; and they were both of them getting as miserable and discontented as he could possibly have wished. At the same time, he desired Mrs. Toosypegs never to allow the ladies to come bothering me, and on no account to pay any attention to what either of them said; for the wicked rogue told me, that, in order to bring about the explosion he so devoutly prayed for, he always made it a point of siding with both of them. Accordingly, whenever Mrs. Yapp came complaining to him, he invariably agreed with her that Mrs. B--ff--n knew nothing about the treatment of infants, and he should take it as a favour if she would keep dear mother from interfering with me as much as possible;--while, on the other hand, whenever Mrs. B--ff--n asked him what she had better do, he always told her Mrs. Yapp was quite ignorant of the management of children, and that, of course, he wished my dear mother to prevent her from coming into the bedroom at all. So he supposed it was this that made them both so determined on pursuing their own plans; and though he assured me it was far from comfortable work sleeping upon that wretched sofa in the back drawing-room, with nothing but cloaks to cover him, still, he said, he shouldn’t murmur, if it was stuffed with broken bottles instead of horse-hair, so long as his two mothers-in-law slept together, and had an opportunity of carrying on their quarrels in bed. So matters went on; until, I declare to goodness, I got nearly as sick and tired of my own dear mother as I was worn out of all patience with the mother of my husband’s poor first wife; and I began to wish to be quit of them both nearly as much as Edward did. I verily believe their continual quarrellings, and bickerings, and squabblings, threw me back frightfully; and, indeed, Mrs. Toosypegs told me, that, with the very fine constitution I have of my own, I ought to have been out of bed and about at least ten days earlier than I was, (it was more than a month before I got thoroughly down-stairs.) To my great horror, just before Mrs. Toosypegs went, she brought me word that the small-pox had broken out among the soldiers in Albany-street Barracks; and as I knew that those soldiers _would_ come bothering after our pretty Susan, of course I saw clear enough that they would be bringing it into the house in their red jackets, and I should have my little girl catching it--poor innocent dear--and perhaps growing up with her face full of holes, and looking for all the world like a sponge. So I determined pretty quickly on getting nurse to go with me to the establishment in Bloomsbury-square, and get the sweet cherub vaccinated.