s so much away,
coming down to Dovercourt only every other day! And then, within the
half hour which was consumed by Lopez with his cigar, the poor woman
got upon the general troubles of her life. Did Mrs. Lopez think that
"all this speckelation was just the right thing?"

"I don't think that I know anything about it, Mrs. Parker."

"But you ought;--oughtn't you, now? Don't you think that a wife ought
to know what it is that her husband is after;--specially if there's
children? A good bit of the money was mine, Mrs. Lopez; and though
I don't begrudge it, not one bit, if any good is to come out of it
to him or them, a woman doesn't like what her father has given her
should be made ducks and drakes of."

"But are they making ducks and drakes?"

"When he don't tell me I'm always afeard. And I'll tell you what
I know just as well as two and two. When he comes home a little
flustered, and then takes more than his regular allowance, he's been
at something as don't quite satisfy him. He's never that way when
he's done a good day's work at his regular business. He takes to the
children then, and has one glass after his dinner, and tells me all
about it,--down to the shillings and pence. But it's very seldom he's
that way now."

"You may think it very odd, Mrs. Parker, but I don't in the least
know what my husband is--in business."

"And you never ask?"

"I haven't been very long married, you know;--only about ten months."

"I'd had my fust by that time."

"Only nine months, I think, indeed."

"Well; I wasn't very long after that. But I took care to know what it
was he was a-doing of in the city long before that time. And I did
use to know everything, till--" She was going to say, till Lopez had
come upon the scene. But she did not wish, at any rate as yet, to be
harsh to her new friend.

"I hope it is all right," said Emily.

"Sometimes he's as though the Bank of England was all his own. And
there's been more money come into the house;--that I must say. And
there isn't an open-handeder one than Sexty anywhere. He'd like to
see me in a silk gown every day of my life;--and as for the children,
there's nothing smart enough for them. Only I'd sooner have a little
and safe, than anything ever so fine, and never be sure whether it
wasn't going to come to an end."

"There I agree with you, quite."

"I don't suppose men feels it as we do; but, oh, Mrs. Lopez, give
me a little, safe, so that I may know that I shan't s