e.
'My congregation expect to go to heaven down hill. Perhaps the chaplain
of Newgate might give you a crown for it,' said he," and Triplet dashed
viciously at the paper. "Ah!" sighed he, "if my friend Mrs. Woffington
would but drop these stupid comedies and take to tragedy, this house
would soon be all smiles."

"Oh James!" replied Mrs. Triplet, almost peevishly, "how can you expect
anything but fine words from that woman? You won't believe what all the
world says. You will trust to your own good heart."

"I haven't a good heart," said the poor, honest fellow. "I spoke like a
brute to you just now."

"Never mind, James," said the woman. "I wonder how you put up with me
at all--a sick, useless creature. I often wish to die, for your sake. I
know you would do better. I am such a weight round your neck."

The man made no answer, but he put Lucy gently down, and went to the
woman, and took her forehead to his bosom, and held it there; and after
a while returned with silent energy to his comedy.

"Play us a tune on the fiddle, father."

"Ay, do, husband. That helps you often in your writing."

Lysimachus brought him the fiddle, and Triplet essayed a merry tune; but
it came out so doleful, that he shook his head, and laid the
instrument down. Music must be in the heart, or it will come out of the
fingers--notes, not music.

"No," said he; "let us be serious and finish this comedy slap off.
Perhaps it hitches because I forgot to invoke the comic muse. She must
be a black-hearted jade, if she doesn't come with merry notions to a
poor devil, starving in the midst of his hungry little ones."

"We are past help from heathen goddesses," said the woman. "We must pray
to Heaven to look down upon us and our children."

The man looked up with a very bad expression on his countenance.

"You forget," said he sullenly, "our street is very narrow, and the
opposite houses are very high."

"James!"

"How can Heaven be expected to see what honest folk endure in so dark a
hole as this?" cried the man, fiercely.

"James," said the woman, with fear and sorrow, "what words are these?"

The man rose and flung his pen upon the floor.

"Have we given honesty a fair trial--yes or no?"

"No!" said the woman, without a moment's hesitation; "not till we die,
as we have lived. Heaven is higher than the sky; children," said she,
lest perchance her husband's words should have harmed their young souls,
"the sky is above the earth, and