The young wife turned and kissed the baby, with her large indolent eyes fixed upon the door somewhat nervously. She had touched the bell more than once without being seen by her husband.
"Wisdom and wit," continued papa, with a voice like that of a man who has overslept himself and hopes to make up for lost time by walking very fast, and talking very little to the purpose—"Wisdom and wit are bubbles"—
The young wife nodded with a sort of a smile, and the baby, rolling over in her lap, let fly both heels? at the nurse, who had crept in slyly, as if intent to lug him off to bed without his knowledge. But he was not in a humor to be trifled with; and so he flopped over on the other side, and, tumbling head over heels upon the floor, very much at large, lay there kicking and screaming till he grew black in the face. But the girl persisted, nevertheless, in lifting him up and lugging him off to the door, notwithstanding his outcries and the expostulatory looks of both papa and mamma—her wages were evidently in arrears, a whole quarter, perhaps.
"Wisdom and wit are bubbles," continued papa; "dominion and power, and beauty and strength"—
"And gingerbread and cheese," added mamma, in reply to something said by the girl in a sort of stage-whisper.
Whereupon papa, stopping short, and looking at mamma for a few moments, puzzled and well nigh speechless, gasped out—
"And gingerbread and cheese! Why, what the plague do you mean, Sarah?"
"Nothing else for tea, my love, so Bridget says. Not a pound o' flour in the house; not so much as a loaf, nor a roll, nor a muffin to be had for love or money—so Bridget says."
"Nothin' to be had without money, ma'am; that's what I said."
"Bridget!"