The English language is so simple in structure that it invites a profligate usage of it; it allows us to pour forth a flood of words without having first thought out what we intended to say. The sentences tumble higgledy-piggledy from our lips like children from an untidy nursery—some unclothed, one short of a shoe, and another over-hatted. Do we get the Parliamentary debates as they were conducted? Where are the 'hems' and 'haws,' the 'I means' and 'you knows'? What has become in print of the vain repetitions and the unfinished sentences? Is not all that put into order by the judicious reporter? In like manner the novelist is armed with the reporter's powers, and exercising the same discretion passes the words of his creations through the same mill. Using, therefore, the privilege of a reporter, we will once more enter the gallery and take down the conversation that ensued at the breakfast-table between Mrs. Sidebottom and Salome.
'My dear Mrs. P.,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'I hope that you were not obliged to call up the doctor in the night.'
'No,' answered Salome, raising her eyebrows.
'But what is the matter with your mother?'
'She has long suffered from heart complaint, and recently she has had much to trouble her. She has had a great shock and is really very unwell, and so is dear baby also; and between both and—and—other matters, I hardly know what I am about.'
'So I perceive,' said Mrs. Sidebottom; 'you have upset the cream.'
Salome had a worn and scared look. Her face had lost every particle of colour the day before. It remained as pale now. She looked as if she had not slept. Her eyes were sunken and red.
'My dear,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'never give in. If I had given in to all the trials that have beset me I should have been worn to fiddle-strings. My first real trial was the loss of Sidebottom, and the serious reduction of my income in consequence; for though he called a house an 'ouse, yet he was in good practice. There is a silver lining to every cloud. I don't suppose I could have got into good society so long as Sidebottom lived, with his dissipated habits about his h's. His aspirate stood during our married life as a wall between us, like that—like that which separated Pyramus from Thisbe.'
Salome made no answer.
'You can have no idea,' continued Mrs. Sidebottom, 'how startled I was in the night by the snoring of the doctor.'