'And he's as old! As unlike her!--Why, how many years older than
you, is Gruff and Tackleton, John?'

'How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night at one sitting,
than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four, I wonder!' replied
John, good-humouredly, as he drew a chair to the round table, and
began at the cold ham. 'As to eating, I eat but little; but that
little I enjoy, Dot.'

Even this, his usual sentiment at meal times, one of his innocent
delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and flatly
contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of his little wife,
who stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-box slowly from her
with her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes were cast
down too, upon the dainty shoe she generally was so mindful of.
Absorbed in thought, she stood there, heedless alike of the tea and
John (although he called to her, and rapped the table with his
knife to startle her), until he rose and touched her on the arm;
when she looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place
behind the teaboard, laughing at her negligence. But, not as she
had laughed before. The manner and the music were quite changed.

The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was not so
cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it.

'So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?' she said, breaking
a long silence, which the honest Carrier had devoted to the
practical illustration of one part of his favourite sentiment--
certainly enjoying what he ate, if it couldn't be admitted that he
ate but little. 'So, these are all the parcels; are they, John?'