'Why, mother dear,' cried Mag suddenly, 'what the plague ails your pretty face? Did you ever see the like? It's for all the world like a bad batter pudding! I lay a crown, now, that was a bill. Was it a bill? Come now, Mullikins (a term of endearment for mother). Show us the note. It is too bad, you poor dear, old, handsome, bothered angel, you should be fretted and tormented out of your looks and your health, by them dirty shopkeepers' bills, when a five-pound note, I'm certain sure, 'id pay every mothers skin o' them, and change to spare!' And the elegant Magnolia, whose soiclainet and Norwich crape petticoat were unpaid for, darted a glance of reproach full upon the major's powdered head, the top of which was cleverly presented to receive it, as he swallowed in haste his cup of tea, and rising suddenly, for his purse had lately suffered in the service of the ladies, and wanted rest—
'Tis nothing at all but that confounded egg,' he said, raising that untasted delicacy a little towards his nose. 'Why the divil will you go on buying our eggs from that dirty old sinner, Poll Delany?' And he dropped it from its cup plump into the slop-basin.
'A then maybe it was,' said poor Mrs. Mac, smiling as well as she could; 'but I'm better.'
'No you're not, Mullikins,' interposed Magnolia impatiently. 'There's Toole crossing the street, will I call him up?'
'Not for the world, Maggy darling. I'd have to pay him, and where's the money to come from?'
The major did not hear, and was coughing besides; and recollecting that he had a word for the adjutant's ear, took his sword off the peg where it hung, and his cocked hat, and vanished in a twinkling.
'Pay Toole, indeed! nonsense, mother,' and up went the window.
'Good-morrow to your nightcap, doctor!'
'And the top of the morning to you, my pretty Miss chattering Mag, up on your perch there,' responded the physician.
'And what in the world brings you out this way at breakfast time, and where are you going?—Oh! goosey, goosey gander, where do you wander?'