‘What is yours—what is it?’ she asked, with altogether a new view of things.
‘Well—it is a bouncer; mine is a bouncer!’ said he, looking on the ground and wiping his eyes.
‘Not worse than mine?’
‘Well—that depends upon how you look at it. Yours had to do with the past alone; and I don’t mind it. You see, we’ve been married a month, and it don’t jar upon me as it would if we’d only been married a day or two. Now mine refers to past, present, and future; so that—’
‘Past, present, and future!’ she murmured. ‘It never occurred to me that you had a tragedy, too.’
‘But I have!’ he said, shaking his head. ‘In fact, four.’
‘Then tell ’em!’ cried the young woman.
‘I will—I will. But be considerate, I beg ’ee, mee deer. Well—I wasn’t a bachelor when I married ’ee, any more than you were a spinster. Just as you was a widow-woman, I was a widow-man.
‘Ah!’ said she, with some surprise. ‘But is that all?—then we are nicely balanced,’ she added, relieved.
‘No—it is not all. There’s the point. I am not only a widower.’