"Wouldn't you?--O yes, you would. If you were a widow to-morrow, and
free to marry again, you would choose just such another man as Tom--a
man who laughs loud, and pays flourishing compliments, and drives a gig
with a high-stepping horse. That's the sort of man women like, and
that's the sort of man you'd marry."

"I'm sure I shouldn't marry at all," answered Mrs. Halliday, in a
voice that was broken by little gasping sobs. "I have seen enough of
the misery of married life. But I don't want Tom to die, unkind as he
is to me. People are always saying that he won't make old bones--how
horrid it is to talk of a person's bones!--and I'm sure I sometimes
make myself wretched about him, as he knows, though he doesn't thank me
for it."

And here Mrs Halliday's sobs got the better of her utterance, and Mr.
Sheldon was fain to say something of a consolatory nature.

"Come, come," he said, "I won't tease you any more. That's against the
laws of hospitality, isn't it?--only there are some things which you
can't expect a man to forget, you know. However, let bygones be
bygones. As for poor old Tom, I daresay he'll live to be a hale, hearty
old man, in spite of the croakers. People always will croak about
something; and it's a kind of fashion to say that a big, hearty,
six-foot man is a fragile blossom likely to be nipped by any wintry
blast. Come, come, Mrs. Halliday, your husband mustn't discover that
I've been making you cry when he comes home. He may be home early this
evening, perhaps; and if he is, we'll have an oyster supper, and a
chat about old times."