“To be sure, Thursday,—Thursday, the ninth; Friday, Liverpool; Saturday, London! Sunday will do for a visit to Dolly; I suppose there will be no impropriety in calling on her of a Sunday?”
“The M'Graders are a Scotch family, I don't know if they 'd like it.”
“That shall be thought of. Let me see; Monday for the great man, Tuesday and Wednesday to see a little bit of London, and back here by the end of the week.”
“Oh! if I thought that, Tony—”
“Well, do think it; believe it, rely upon it. If you like, I'll give up the Tuesday and Wednesday, though I have some very gorgeous speculations about Westminster Abbey and the Tower, and the monkeys in the Zoological Gardens, with the pantomime for a finish in the evening. But you 've only to say the word, and I 'll start half an hour after I see the Don in Downing Street.”
“No, of course not, darling. I 'm not so selfish as that; and if you find that London amuses you and is not too expensive,—for you know, Tony, what a slender purse we have,—stay a week,—two weeks, Tony, if you like it.”
“What a good little woman it is!” said he, pressing her towards him; and the big tears trembled in his eyes and rolled heavily along his cheeks. “Now for the ugly part,—the money, I mean.”
“I have eleven pounds in the house, Tony, if that will do to take with you.”
“Do, mother! Of course it will. I don't mean to spend near so much; but how can you spare such a sum? that's the question.”
“I just had it by, Tony, for a rainy day, as they call it; or I meant to have made you a smart present on the fourth of next month, for your birthday.—I forget, indeed, what I intended it for,” said she, wiping her eyes, “for this sudden notion of yours has driven everything clean out of my head; and all I can think of is if there be buttons on your shirts, and how many pairs of socks you have.”