pounds? But so it is: a wife may work and may slave! Ha, dear! the
many things that might have been done with five pounds. As if people
picked up money in the street! But you always were a fool, Mr.
Caudle! I've wanted a black satin gown these three years, and that
five pounds would have entirely bought it. But it's no matter how I
go,--not at all. Everybody says I don't dress as becomes your wife--
and I don't; but what's that to you, Mr. Caudle? Nothing. Oh, no!
you can have fine feelings for everybody but those belonging to you.
I wish people knew you, as I do--that's all. You like to be called
liberal--and your poor family pays for it.

"All the girls want bonnets, and where they're to come from I can't
tell. Half five pounds would have bought 'em--but now they must go
without. Of course, THEY belong to you: and anybody but your own
flesh and body, Mr. Caudle!

"The man called for the water-rate to-day; but I should like to know
how people are to pay taxes, who throw away five pounds to every
fellow that asks them?

"Perhaps you don't know that Jack, this morning, knocked his
shuttlecock through his bedroom window. I was going to send for the
glazier to mend it; but after you lent that five pounds I was sure we
couldn't afford it. Oh, no! the window must go as it is; and pretty
weather for a dear child to sleep with a broken window. He's got a
cold already on his lungs, and I shouldn't at all wonder if that
broken window settled him. If the dear boy dies, his death will be
upon his father's head; for I'm sure we can't now pay to mend
windows. We might though, and do a good many more things too, if
people didn't throw away their five pounds.