'You expressly desired me to wait tea, Mr. Furnival. I have got your letter, and will show it you if you wish it.'
'Nonsense; I just said I should be home——'
'Of course you just said you would be home, and so we waited; and it's not nonsense; and I declare——! Never mind, Martha, don't mind me, there's a good creature. I shall get over it soon;' and then fat, solid, good-humoured Mrs. Furnival burst out into an hysterical fit of sobbing. There was a welcome for a man on his return to his home after a day's labour!
Miss Biggs immediately got up and came round behind the drawing-room table to her friend's head. 'Be calm, Mrs. Furnival,' she said; 'do be calm, and then you will be better soon. Here is the hartshorn.'
'It doesn't matter, Martha: never mind: leave me alone,' sobbed the poor woman.
'May I be excused for asking what is really the matter?' said Mr. Furnival, 'for I'll be whipped if I know.' Miss Biggs looked at him as if she thought that he ought to be whipped.
'I wonder you ever come near the place at all, I do,' said Mrs. Furnival.
'What place?' asked Mr. Furnival.
'This house in which I am obliged to live by myself, without a soul to speak to, unless when Martha Biggs comes here.'
'Which would be much more frequent, only that I know I am not welcome to everybody.'
'I know that you hate it. How can I help knowing it?—and you hate me too; I know you do;—and I believe you would be glad if you need never come back here at all; I do. Don't, Martha; leave me alone. I don't want all that fuss. There; I can hear it now, whatever it is. Do you choose to have your tea, Mr. Furnival? or do you wish to keep the servants waiting out of their beds all night?'
'D——— the servants,' said Mr. Furnival.
'Oh laws!' exclaimed Miss Biggs, jumping up out of her chair with her hands and fingers outstretched, as though never, never in her life before, had her ears been wounded by such wicked words as those.
'Mr. Furnival, I am ashamed of you,' said his wife with gathered calmness of stern reproach.
Mr. Furnival was very wrong to swear; doubly wrong to swear before his wife; trebly wrong to swear before a lady visitor; but it must be confessed that there was provocation. That he was at this present period of his life behaving badly to his wife must be allowed, but on this special evening he had intended to behave well. The woman had sought a ground of quarrel against him, and had driven him on till he had forgotten himself in his present after-
