‘Two years, my dear.’
‘Pray explain to me, Maurice, why, when people become widowed in any unusually lamentable way, they always are the first to marry again.’
‘Incorrigible. I meant to make you pity him.’
‘I did, till I found I had wasted my pity. Why could not these Meadowses look after his children! Why must the Colonel bring him here? I believe it was with malice prepense!’
‘The Colonel went to see after him, and found him so drooping and wretched, that he insisted on bringing him home with him, and old Mrs. Meadows and her daughter almost forced him to accept the invitation.’
‘They little guessed what the Colonel would be at!’
‘You will be better now you have the Colonel to abuse,’ said her husband.
‘And pray what do you mean to say to the General?’
‘Exactly what I think.’
‘And to the aunts?’ slyly asked the wife.