“It's this house, I think,” she said, with a resigned smile. “It never did agree with me.
“Well, you've lived in it a good many years,” said her husband, controlling himself with difficulty.
“It's rather dark and small,” said Mrs. Gribble. “Not but what it is good enough for me. And I dare say it will last my time.”
“Nonsense!” said her husband, gruffly. “You want to get out a bit more. You've got nothing to do now we are wasting all this money on a servant. Why don't you go out for little walks?”
Mrs. Gribble went, after several promptings, and the fruit of one of them was handed by the postman to Mr. Gribble a few days afterwards. Half-choking with wrath and astonishment, he stood over his trembling wife with the first draper's bill he had ever received.
“One pound two shillings and threepence three-farthings!” he recited. “It must be a mistake. It must be for somebody else.”
Mrs. Gribble, with her hand to her heart, tottered to the sofa and lay there with her eyes closed.
“I had to get some dress material,” she said, in a quavering voice. “You want me to go out, and I'm so shabby I'm ashamed to be seen.”
Mr. Gribble made muffled noises in his throat; then, afraid to trust himself, he went into the back-yard and, taking a seat on an upturned bucket, sat with his head in his hands peering into the future.
The dressmaker's bill and a bill for a new hat came after the next monthly payment; and a bill for shoes came a week later. Hoping much from the well-known curative effects of fine feathers, he managed to treat the affair with dignified silence. The only time he allowed full play to his feelings Mrs. Gribble took to her bed for two days, and the doctor had a heart-to-heart talk with him on the doorstep.