--and sometimes they would
prove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look grudgingly upon
us--but we had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat
our plain food savorily, scarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall?
Now, when we go out a day's pleasuring, which is seldom moreover, we
_ride_ part of the way--and go into a fine inn, and order the best of
dinners, never debating the expense--which, after all, never has half
the relish of those chance country snaps, when we were at the mercy of
uncertain usage, and a precarious welcome.

"You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the pit. Do
you remember where it was we used to sit, when we saw the battle of
Hexham, and the surrender of Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland
in the Children in the Wood--when we squeezed out our shillings
a-piece to sit three or four times in a season in the one-shilling
gallery--where you felt all the time that you ought not to have
brought me--and more strongly I felt obligation to you for having
brought me--and the pleasure was the better for a little shame--and
when the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the house, or
what mattered it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were with
Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Illyria? You used to
say, that the gallery was the best place of all for enjoying a play
socially--that the relish of such exhibitions must be in proportion
to the infrequency of going--that the company we met there, not being
in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and
did attend, to what was going on, on the stage--because a word lost
would have been a chasm, which it was impossible for them to fill
up. With such reflections we consoled our pride then--and I appeal
to you, whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and
accommodation, than I have done since in more expensive situations
in the house? The getting in indeed, and the crowding up those
inconvenient staircases, was bad enough,--but there was still a law of
civility to women recognised to quite as great an extent as we ever
found in the other passages--and how a little difficulty overcome
heightened the snug seat, and the play, afterwards! Now we can only
pay our money, and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleries
now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then--but sight, and
all, I think, is gone with our poverty.

"There was pleasure in eating strawberries