“Just, just! We can’t go out for a walk together but he shouts, ‘How do? Fine day, mates!’ to the drivers of the hackney cabs across the promenade; and the joy of his life is to get up at seven in the morning and go down to the quay before breakfast to keep tally with a chalk for the fishermen counting their herrings out of the boats into the barrels.”
“Not a bit changed, then, since he went away?” said Jenny, before the glass.
“Not a bit; and because I asked him to know his place, and if he is a gentleman to behave as a gentleman and speak as a gentleman and not make so easy with such as don’t respect him any the better for it, he turns on me and tells me I’ve only married him for his money.”
“Dreadful!” said Jenny, fixing her fringe. “And is this the old sweetheart you have waited ten years for?”
“Indeed, it is.”
“And now that he has come back and you’ve married him, he has parted from you in ten days?”
“Yes; and it will be the talk of the island—indeed it will.”
“Shocking! And so he has left you here on your honeymoon without a penny to bless yourself?”
“Oh, for the matter of that, he fixed something on me before the wedding—a jointure, the advocates called it.”
“Terrible! Let me see. He’s the one who sent you presents from America?”