, then, will be rich (and the thought made me rub my
shins, which were now getting comfortably warm upon the fire-dogs).
Then she will be forever talking of _her_ fortune; and pleasantly
reminding you; on occasion of a favorite purchase, how lucky that _she_
had the means; and dropping hints about economy; and buying very
extravagant Paisleys.

She will annoy you by looking over the stock-list at breakfast-time,
and mention quite carelessly to your clients that she is interested in
_such_ or such a speculation.

She will be provokingly silent when you hint to a tradesman that you
have not the money by you for his small bill--in short, she will tear
the life out of you, making you pay in righteous retribution of
annoyance, grief, vexation, shame, and sickness of heart, for the
superlative folly of "marrying rich."

But if not rich, then poor. Bah! the thought made me stir the coals;
but there was still no blaze. The paltry earnings you are able to
wring out of clients by the sweat of your brow will now be all _our_
income; you will be pestered for pin-money, and pestered with your poor
wife's relations. Ten to one, she will stickle about taste--"Sir
Visto's"--and want to make this so pretty, and that so charming, if she
_only_ had the means; and is sure Paul (a kiss) can't deny his little
Peggy such a trifling sum, and all for the common benefit.

Then she, for one, means that _her_ children sha'n't go a-begging for
clothes--and another pull at the purse. Trust a poor mother to dress
her children in finery!

Perhaps she is ugly--not noticeable at first, but growing on her, and
(what is worse) growing faster on you. You wonder why you didn't see
that vulgar nose long ago; and that lip--it is very strange, you think,
that you ever thought it pretty. And then, to come to breakfast with
her hair looking as it does, and you not so much as daring to say,
"Peggy, _do_ brush your hair!" Her foot, too--not very bad when
decently _chausse_; but now since she's married she does wear such
infernal slippers! And yet for all this, to be prigging up for an
hour, when any of my old chums come to dine with me!

"Bless your kind hearts, my dear fellows," said I, thrusting the tongs
into the coals and speaking out loud, as if my voice could reach from
Virginia to Paris, "not married yet!"

Perhaps Peggy is pretty enough, only shrewish.

No matter for cold coffee; you should have been up before.

What sad, thin, poorly co