“Well,” said the matron, leaning her elbow on the table, and looking reflectively at the fire, “I’m sure we have all on us a great deal to be grateful for—a great deal, if we did but know it. Ah!”
Mrs. Corney shook her head mournfully, as if deploring the mental blindness of those paupers who did not know it, and thrusting a silver spoon (private property) into the inmost recesses of a two-ounce tin tea-caddy, proceeded to make the tea.
How slight a thing will disturb the equanimity of our frail minds! The black teapot, being very small and easily filled, ran over while Mrs. Corney was moralizing, and the water slightly scalded Mrs. Corney’s hand.
“Drat the pot!” said the worthy matron, setting it down very hastily on the hob; “a little stupid thing, that only holds a couple of cups! What use is it of to any body?—except,” said Mrs. Corney, pausing,—“except to a poor desolate creature like me. Oh dear!”
With these words the matron dropped into her chair, and, once more resting her elbow on the table, thought of her solitary fate. The small teapot and the single cup had awakened in her mind sad recollections of Mr. Corney (who had not been dead more than five-and-twenty years), and she was overpowered.
“I shall never get another!” said Mrs. Corney, pettishly; “I shall never get another—like him.”
Whether this remark bore reference to the husband or the teapot is uncertain. It might have been the latter; for Mrs. Corney looked at it as she spoke, and took it up afterwards. She had just tasted her first cup, when she was disturbed by a soft tap at the room-door.
“Oh, come in with you!” said Mrs. Corney, sharply. “Some of the old women dying, I suppose;—they always die when I’m at meals. Don’t stand there, letting the cold air in, don’t. What’s amiss now, eh?”
“Nothing, ma’am, nothing,” replied a man’s voice.
“Dear me!” exclaimed the matron, in a much sweeter tone, “is that Mr. Bumble?”