Volume III Part 21 (1/2)
”Your naer Anna, Mrs Greenfield; for the future you shall be called Jezabel I only regret that I have twelve tiled my blood with your impure blood” And then, seized by pity, he added: ”If you were only in a state of inebriety, of intoxication, I could excuse you”
”Well, yes, yes!” she exclaiive ive you, Anna,” he replied, and he gave her a wash-hand basin, saying: ”Cold water will do you good, and when your head is clear, remember the lesson which you must learn from this occurrence”
”What lesson?” she asked, huht never to depart from their usual habits”
”But why, then, Williaed your habits?”
”Hold your tongue!” he cried--”hold your tongue, Jezabel! Have you not got over your intoxication yet? For twelve years I certainly followed the divine precept: _increase and rown accusto else, and I do not wish to alter my habits”
And the Reverend William Greenfield, Vicar of St Sampson's, Tottenha food and liquor, whose ears were like full-blown poppies and who had a nose like a tomato, left his wife and, as had been his habit for four years, went to make love to Polly, the servant
”Now, Polly,” he said, ”you are a clever girl, and I h you, to teach Mrs Greenfield a lesson she will never forget I will try and see what I can do for you”
And in order to this, he called her his little Jezabel, and said to her, with an unctuous smile:
”Call me Jeroboam! You don't understand why? Neither do I, but that does not s, Polly, and show yourself to Mrs
Greenfield”
The servant did as she was bidden, and the result was that Mrs
Greenfield never again hinted to her husband the desirability of laying the foundation of a thirteenth tribe
THE LOG
It was a ss, and with a faint, judicious s in the grate, while one lamp, covered with a shade of old lace, on the corner of the ht onto the two persons ere talking
She, the mistress of the house, was an old lady hite hair, but one of those adorable old ladies whose unwrinkled skin is as snated with perfume as the delicate essences which she had used in her bath for so h the epidermis
He was a very old friend, who had never married, a constant friend, a co else
They had not spoken for about ano matter of what, in one of those moments of friendly silence between people who have no need to be constantly talking in order to be happy together, when suddenly a large log, a stu roots, fell out It fell over the fire-dogs into the drawing-rooreat sparks all round The old lady sprang up with a little screa back onto the hearth and trod out all the burning sparks with his boots
When the disaster was repaired, there was a strong s down opposite to his friend, the man looked at her with a s:
”That is the reason why I never married”
She looked at hiaze of wo, that eye which wo, in which complicated, and often malicious curiosity is reflected, and she asked: