"WHY WON'T I HOLD MY TONGUE?

"Because I WON'T hold my tongue. I'm to have my peace of mind
destroyed--I'm to be worried into my grave for a miserable shirt
button, and I'm to hold my tongue! Oh! but that's just like you men!

"But I know what I'll do for the future. Every button you have may
drop off, and I won't so much as put a thread to 'em. And I should
like to know what you'll do then? Oh, you must get somebody else to
sew 'em, must you? That's a pretty threat for a husband to hold out
to a wife! And to such a wife as I've been, too: such a negro-slave
to your buttons, as I may say! Somebody else to sew 'em, eh? No,
Caudle, no: not while I'm alive! When I'm dead--and with what I
have to bear there's no knowing how soon that may be--when I'm dead,
I say--oh! what a brute you must be to snore so!

"YOU'RE NOT SNORING?

"Ha! that's what you always say; but that's nothing to do with it.
You must get somebody else to sew 'em, must you? Ha! I shouldn't
wonder. Oh no! I should be surprised at nothing, now! Nothing at
all! It's what people have always told me it would come to,--and now
the buttons have opened my eyes! But the whole world shall know of
your cruelty, Mr. Caudle. After the wife I've been to you. Somebody
else, indeed, to sew your buttons! I'm no longer to be mistress in
my own house! Ha, Caudle! I wouldn't have upon my conscience what
you have, for the world! I wouldn't treat anybody as you treat--no,
I'm not mad! It's you, Mr. Caudle, who are mad, or bad--and that's
worse! I can't even so much as speak of a shirt button, but that I'm
threatened to be made nobody of in my own house! Caudle, you've a