not quite so rich. I do not mean that I want to be poor; but there was a
middle state,"--so she was pleased to ramble on,--"in which I am sure we
were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase, now that you
have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. When
we coveted a cheap luxury (and, oh! how much ado I had to get you to
consent in those times!) we were used to have a debate two or three days
before, and to weigh the _for_ and _against_, and think what we might
spare it out of, and what saving we could hit upon, that should be an
equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, when we felt the money that
we paid for it.

"Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, till
your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so threadbare--and all
because of that folio _Beaumont and Fletcher_, which you dragged home
late at night from Barker's in Covent-garden? Do you remember how we
eyed it for weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase, and
had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock of the
Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you should be
too late--and when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his
shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bed-ward) lighted
out the relic from his dusty treasures--and when you lugged it home,
wishing it were twice as cumbersome--and when you presented it to
me--and when we were exploring the perfectness of it (_collating_ you
called it)--and while I was repairing some of the loose leaves with
paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be left till
daybreak--was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or can those neat
black clothes which you wear now, and are so careful to keep brushed,
since we have become rich and finical, give you half the honest vanity
with which you flaunted it about in that overworn suit--your old
corbeau--for four or five weeks longer than you should have done, to