Read Online Charles Dickens by The Cricket on the Hearth - Free Book Online

She also wore her gloves. But
let us be genteel, or die!
    Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow were side
by side; the good Carrier took care of the bottom of the table.
Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article
of furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing
else to knock the Baby's head against.
    As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared at her
and at the company. The venerable old gentlemen at the street
doors (who were all in full action) showed especial interest in the
party, pausing occasionally before leaping, as if they were
listening to the conversation, and then plunging wildly over and
over, a great many times, without halting for breath—as in a
frantic state of delight with the whole proceedings.
    Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a fiendish
joy in the contemplation of Tackleton's discomfiture, they had good
reason to be satisfied. Tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the
more cheerful his intended bride became in Dot's society, the less
he liked it, though he had brought them together for that purpose.
For he was a regular dog in the manger, was Tackleton; and when
they laughed and he couldn't, he took it into his head,
immediately, that they must be laughing at him.
    'Ah, May!' said Dot. 'Dear dear, what changes! To talk of those
merry school-days makes one young again.'
    'Why, you an't particularly old, at any time; are you?' said
Tackleton.
    'Look at my sober plodding husband there,' returned Dot. 'He adds
twenty years to my age at least. Don't you, John?'
    'Forty,' John replied.
    'How many YOU'll add to May's, I am sure I don't know,' said Dot,
laughing. 'But she can't be much less than a hundred years of age
on her next birthday.'
    'Ha ha!' laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum, that laugh though.
And he looked as if he could have twisted Dot's neck, comfortably.
    'Dear dear!' said Dot. 'Only to remember how we used to talk, at
school, about the husbands we would choose. I don't know how
young, and how handsome, and how gay, and how lively, mine was not
to be! And as to May's!—Ah dear! I don't know whether to laugh
or cry, when I think what silly girls we were.'
    May seemed to know which to do; for the colour flushed into her
face, and tears stood in her eyes.
    'Even the very persons themselves—real live young men—were fixed
on sometimes,' said Dot. 'We little thought how things would come
about. I never fixed on John I'm sure; I never so much as thought
of him. And if I had told you, you were ever to be married to Mr.
Tackleton, why you'd have slapped me. Wouldn't you, May?'
    Though May didn't say yes, she certainly didn't say no, or express
no, by any means.
    Tackleton laughed—quite shouted, he laughed so loud. John
Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary good-natured and contented
manner; but his was a mere whisper of a laugh, to Tackleton's.
    'You couldn't help yourselves, for all that. You couldn't resist
us, you see,' said Tackleton. 'Here we are! Here we are!'
    'Where are your gay young bridegrooms now!'
    'Some of them are dead,' said Dot; 'and some of them forgotten.
Some of them, if they could stand among us at this moment, would
not believe we were the same creatures; would not believe that what
they saw and heard was real, and we COULD forget them so. No! they
would not believe one word of it!'
    'Why, Dot!' exclaimed the Carrier. 'Little woman!'
    She had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she stood in
need of some recalling to herself, without doubt. Her husband's
check was very gentle, for he merely interfered, as he supposed, to
shield old Tackleton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped, and
said no more. There was an uncommon agitation, even in her
silence, which the wary Tackleton, who had brought his half-shut
eye to bear upon her, noted closely, and remembered to some purpose
too.
    May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with her
eyes cast down, and