‘Well, then,’ said the unhappy Phil, ‘I am not the only one in this mess. Would to Heaven I were! But—’
‘O, Phil!’
‘I have a wife as destitute as I.’
‘A wife?’ said his mother.
‘Unhappily!’
‘A wife! Yes, that is the way with sons!’
‘And besides—’ said he.
‘Besides! O, Philip, surely—’
‘I have two little children.’
‘Wife and children!’ whispered Mrs. Hall, sinking down confounded.