Pooh! I defy you.

d.i.c.k--(_doubling his fist._)

Don't you put me in a pa.s.sion, Meg!

MARGERY.

Get along; I don't care that for you! (_snaps her fingers._) You used to be my own dear d.i.c.k, and now you're a cross, miserly curmudgeon--

d.i.c.k--(_quite furious._)

You will have it then! Why, then, take it, with a mischief; take that, and that, and that!

[_He beats her; she screams._

MARGERY.

Oh! oh! oh!--pray don't--pray--(_Breaks from him, and throws herself into a chair._) O d.i.c.k! to go for to strike me! O that I should ever see the day!--you cruel, unkind----Oh! oh!

[_Covers her face with her ap.r.o.n, sobs, and cries; and he stands looking at her sheepishly. A long pause._

d.i.c.k--(_in great agitation._)

Eh, why! women be made of eggsh.e.l.ls, I do think. Why, Meg, I didn't hurt you, did I? why don't you speak? Now, don't you be sulky, come; it wasn't much. A man is but flesh and blood, after all; come, I say--I'll never get into a pa.s.sion with you again to my dying day--I won't--come, don't cry; (_tries to remove the ap.r.o.n_,) come, kiss, and be friends.

Won't you forgive your own dear d.i.c.k, won't you? (_ready to cry_) She won't!--Here, here's the money, and the purse and all--take it, do what you like with it. (_She shakes her head._) What, you won't then? why, then, there--(_throws it on the ground._) Deuce fetch me if ever I touch it again! and I wish my fingers had been burnt before ever I took it,--so I do! (_with feeling._) We were so happy this morning, when we hadn't a penny to bless ourselves with, nor even a bit to eat; and now, since all this money has come to us of a suddent, why, it's all as one as if old Nick himself were in the purse. I'll tell you what, Meg, eh!

shall I? Shall I take it back to the lady, and give our duty to her, and tell her we don't want her guineas, shall I, Meg? shall I, dear heart?

[_During the last few words MARGERY lets the ap.r.o.n fall from her face, looks up at him, and smiles._

d.i.c.k.

Oh, that's right, and we'll be happy again, and never quarrel more.

MARGERY.

No, never! (_They embrace._) Take it away, for I can't bear the sight of it.

d.i.c.k.

Take it _you_ then, for you know, Meg, I said I would never touch it again; and what I says, I says--and what I says, I sticks to.

[_Pushes it towards her with his foot._

MARGERY.

And so do I: and I vowed to myself that I wouldn't touch it, and I won't.

[_Kicks it back to him._

d.i.c.k.

How shall we manage then? Oh, I have it. Fetch me the tongs here.

(_Takes up the purse in the tongs, and holds it at arm's length._) Now I'm going. So, Meg, if you repent, now's the time. Speak--or for ever hold your tongue.

MARGERY.

Me repent? No, my dear d.i.c.k! I feel, somehow, quite light, as if a great weight were gone away from here. (_Laying her hands on her bosom._) Money may be a good thing when it comes little by little, and we gain it honestly by our own hard work; but when it comes this way, in a lump--one doesn't know how or why--it's quite too surprising, as one may say;--it gets into one's head, like--the punch, d.i.c.k!

d.i.c.k.

Aye, and worser--turns it all the wrong way; but I've done with both:--I'll have no more to say to drinking, and fine ladies, and purses o' money;--we'll go and live in the stall round the corner, and I'll take to my work and my singing again--eh, Meg?

MARGERY.

Bless you, my dear, dear d.i.c.k! (_kisses him._)

d.i.c.k.

Ay, that's as it should be:--so now come along. We never should have believed this, if we hadn't tried; but it's just what my old mother used to say--MUCH COIN, MUCH CARE.[28]

THE END.

LONDON: IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Some of the sentences which follow (marked by inverted commas,) are taken from a portrait of Mrs. Siddons, dated 1812, and attributed to Sir Walter Scott.]

[Footnote 2: I am permitted to give the following little extract as farther ill.u.s.trating that tenderness of nature which I have only touched upon. "I owe ---- ---- a letter, but I don't know how it is, now that I am arrived at that time of life when I supposed I should be able to sit down and indulge my natural indolence, I find the business of it thickens and increases around me; and I am now as much occupied about the affairs of others as I have been about my own. I am just now expecting my son George's two babies from India. The ship which took them from their parents, I thank heaven, is safely arrived: _Oh! that they could know it!_ For the present I shall have them near me. There is a school between my little hut and the church, where they will have delicious air, and I shall be able to see the poor dears every day."]

[Footnote 3: I believe it _has_ been said; but, like Madlle. de Montpensier my imagination and my memory are sometimes confounded.]

[Footnote 4: Ben Jonson.]

[Footnote 5: George the Fourth, after conversing with her, said with emphasis, "She is the only _real_ queen!"]

[Footnote 6: In a letter to Mrs. Thrale.]

[Footnote 7: In the Grosvenor gallery. There is a duplicate of this picture in the Dulwich gallery.]