So on Sunday at tea-time I said, not as if I were meaning anything in particular, "Is there anything you want, Eliza?"
"Yes," she said; "I want a general who'll go to bed at half-past nine and get up at half-past five. If they'd only do that, that's all I ask."
"You will pardon me, Eliza," I said, "but you are not speaking correctly. You said that was all that you asked. What you meant——"
"Do you know what I meant?"
"I flatter myself that I know precisely——"
"Then if you know precisely what I meant, I must have spoken accurately."
But as we went to church I discovered that she wanted a new jacket. Her own was trimmed rabbit, and had been good, but the fur had gone bald in places.
Next morning I wrote on a sheet of note-paper, "To buy a new jacket. With your husband's love." I folded the two sovereigns up in this, and dropped the packet into the pocket of Eliza's old jacket, as it hung in the wardrobe, not telling her what I had done. My idea was that she would put on the jacket to go out shopping in the morning, and putting her hand in the pocket, get a pleasant surprise. As I was leaving for town, she asked me why I kept on smiling so mysteriously. I replied, "Perhaps you, too, will smile before the day is over."
On my return I found Eliza at the front door. "Come and look," she said, cheerfully. "I have got a pleasant surprise for you." She flung open the drawing-room door, and pointed. In the middle of the table stood a spiraea, a most handsome and graceful plant. It stood in one of the best saucers, with some coloured paper round the pot, and the general effect was very good. I at once guessed that she had bought it for me with the change from my present to her, and thought it showed very good feeling in her.