"Then, where does the man mean, Kitty-wren?" cried she: "he is talking in Nephelo-coccugia, he hears a toll and thinks it a marriage-bell, I am sure he is bewitched, he has blinkers on his eyes and morris bells on his fingers: let's scream at him, and stop his dancing; he will take worms to his bed, and be hugging them for his warm darling: Heaven guard us from such a carle!"
"But pray, pray," was all that I could say, for a hunger and pity of her possessed me.
"I am only telling you the truth," she answered, "your luck has leprosy, your godmother must have been cross-eyed; and have I ever vowed to be one Mrs Templeton, with your ring round my finger, whispering: 'this is my body'? I don't remember! I knew you when you were a young boy, and I had a dream of you one night in which something said into my ear nothing but 'Arthur, Arthur, Arthur'—just 'Arthur, Arthur, Arthur' for years, and nothing else—a rum dream. But 'wife!' 'wife!' shrilled the thrush, and the cuckoo answered, 'all gone,' 'all gone.' 'Wife' is a bird-word, Jenny, it has no equivalent in my language. 'Wife!' sing 'wife!' My tongue is too thick to sweet it."
"Mine isn't," I said, "if you will hear me say it. Emily, look at me, I am praying you——"
"Idolatrously: I am wood and stone. Still, let me hear you say it."
"Say what?"
"'Wife': to hear how you pronounce the fluty f-sound and the deep i and the wallowing w."
"Well, since that pleases you, I say—'wife.'"
"Oh, but so sheepishly? without unction? Hear me say it—'wife.'"
"Well, so I too say it—'wife.'"