“And do you mean to stand there, woman, and tell me that you were simpleton enough to give it?” I continued, as the whole truth flashed upon me; for mother had had the very same wicked trick played off upon her, and had cautioned me against it herself. “Yes, mum, I did,” she answered, quite coolly, “and he’s never been back since.” “Of course he hasn’t,” I shrieked out, “and never will you set eyes upon him, or my clean linen again. Oh! you good-for-nothing, shameful, novel-reading, story-believing hussy. Now, see what your highly exciting romances have led you to do. Here am I, who have always been the best of mistresses to you, wet to the skin, and without a clean morning wrapper to put on, nor even so much as a dress fit to go to church in to-morrow, to say nothing of the two pairs of beautiful linen sheets that you’ve wilfully lost for me, and the very white trousers that my husband was married in, and which I wouldn’t have parted with for untold gold. There, go down stairs and hide your face, and think how you’ll relish it when you have to pay for it, and find, as you most assuredly will, that you haven’t got a penny to receive at the end of the year.” However, it was useless fretting; there were three of as beautiful summer dresses as ever were made, and the beautiful afternoon’s ride I had promised myself after church on the morrow, all gone; for my sweet pretty Swiss cambric was among the number, and I could never think of walking in Kensington Gardens in that grubby, seedy, hot, plaid thing, that I had worn all the winter through. As I said before, it was useless fretting, so I changed from top to toe, and put on some of the things I had taken off during the week, which, to say the least, were dry; and, as I wasn’t in the humour to care a pin how I looked, why, I popped on my flannel dressing-gown, for, to tell the truth, I felt rather chilly, and Mr. Edward might tell me, for the hundredth time, that I looked like an old watchman in it, as much as he pleased, for what I cared. At dinner, just as we were taking cheese, there came that plaguy Saturday night ring at our area-bell, and I could have staked my existence that it was that dirty-faced young monkey of a boy again, bringing Miss Betsy another pen’orth of her precious “EMILY FITZORMOND,” and the fifth part of that bothering, vagabond “outcast” of an “ELA.” It was as much as I could do to prevent myself from jumping off my seat, and rushing down stairs, and tearing the whole of the high-flown fustian out of the hussy’s hand, just as she was enjoying that “Sunday Times” picture, as I knew she was. But, luckily for her, I felt far from myself, for I was as sure as sure could be that I had caught such a cold as would play old gooseberry with me,--if I might be allowed so strong an expression,--and I didn’t take it in time.