Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/198

 LECTURE XXIX.

MRS. CAUDLE THINKS "THE TIME HAS COME TO HAVE A COTTAGE OUT OF TOWN."

H, Caudle, you ought to have had something nice to-night; for you're not well, love—I know you're not. Ha! that's like you men—so headstrong! You will have it that nothing ails you; but I can tell, Caudle. The eye of a wife—and such a wife as I've been to you—can at once see whether a husband's well or not. You've been turning like tallow all the week; and what's more, you eat nothing now. It makes me melancholy to see you at a joint. I don't say anything at dinner before the children; but I don't feel the less. No, no; you're not very well; and you're not as strong as a horse. Don't deceive yourself—nothing of the sort. No, and you don't eat as much as ever: and if you do, you don't eat with a relish, I'm sure of that. You can't deceive me there.

"But I know what's killing you. It's the confinement; it's the bad air you breathe; it's the smoke of London. Oh yes, I know your old excuse: you never found the air bad before. Perhaps not. But as people grow older, and get on in trade—and, after all, we've nothing to complain of, Caudle—London air always disagrees