lled him), we used to welcome in the 'coming guest.'
Now we have no reckoning at all at the end of the old year--no
flattering promises about the new year doing better for us."

Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions, that when she
gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how I interrupt it. I could
not help, however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dear
imagination had conjured up out of a clear income of a poor--hundred
pounds a year. "It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but we
were also younger, my cousin. I am afraid we must put up with the
excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should
not much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as we grew
up together, we have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened, and
knit our compact closer. We could never have been what we have been to
each other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you now
complain of. The resisting power--those natural dilations of the
youthful spirit, which circumstances cannot straighten--with us are
long since passed away. Competence to age is supplementary youth, a
sorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. We
must ride, where we formerly walked: live better, and lie softer--and
shall be wise to do so--than we had means to do in those good old days
you speak of. Yet could those days return--could you and I once more
walk our thirty miles a-day--could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again be
young, and you and I be young to see them--could the good old
one-shilling gallery days return--they are dreams, my cousin, now--but
could you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument, by our
well-carpeted fire-side, sitting on this luxurious sofa--be once more
struggling up those inconvenient stair cases, pushed about, and
squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble or poor gallery
scramblers--could I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours--and
the delicious _Thank God, we are safe_, which always followed when the
topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful
theatre down beneath us--I know not the fathom line that ever touched
a descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than
Croesus had, or the great Jew R---- is supposed to have, to purchase
it. And now do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding
an umbrella, big enough for a bed-tester, over the head of that pretty
insipid half-Madonaish