“Not you, Nell!” he cried. “By the Lord Harry! your feet have got smaller instead of larger during these years—I swear to you that is so.”
“Ah, the chilblains do make a difference, Dick,” said she, “and you never saw my feet unless they were covered with chilblains. Lord! how you cried when you saw my feet well covered for the first time.”
“Not I—-I didn't cry. What was there to cry about, Nell?” he said.
She felt very much inclined to ask him the same question at that moment, for his face was averted from her, and he had uttered his words spasmodically.
“Poor Dick! You wept because you had eaten nothing for three days in order to save enough to buy my stockings,” she said.
“How know you that?” he cried, turning to her suddenly.
“I knew it not at the time,” she replied, “but I have thought over it since.”
“Think no more of it, Nell. O Lord! to think that I should live to see Nell again! No—no; I'll not believe it. That fine lady that I see in the big glass yonder cannot be Nell Gwyn!”
“Oh, Dick, would any one but Nell Gwyn remember about Nell Gwyn's chilblains?”
“Hearsay, mere hearsay, my fine madam!”