Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/202

 166 of doors. My only wish is to make you happy, Caudle, and you won't let me do it.

"You don't speak, love? Shall I look about a house to-morrow? It will be a broken day with me, for I'm going out to have little pet's ears bored——What?

"You won't have her ears bored?

"And why not, I should like to know?

"It's a barbarous, savage custom?

"Oh, Mr. Caudle! the sooner you go away from the world, and live in a cave, the better. You're getting not fit for Christian society. What next? My ears were bored and—What?

"So are yours?

"I know what you mean—but that's nothing to do with it. My ears, I say, were bored, and so were dear mother's, and grandmother's before her; and I suppose there were no more savages in our family than in yours, Mr. Caudle? Besides,—why should little pet's ears go naked any more than any of her sisters'? They wear earrings; you never objected before. What?

"You've learned better now?

"Yes, that's all with your filthy politics again. You'd shake all the world up in a dice-box, if you'd your way: not that you care a pin about the world, only you'd like to get a better throw for yourself,—that's all. But little pet shall be bored, and don't think to prevent it.

"I suppose she's to be married some day, as well as her sisters? And who'll look at a girl without earrings, I should like to know? If you knew anything of the world, you'd know what a nice diamond earring will sometimes do—when one can get it—before this. But I know why you can't abide earrings now: Miss Prettyman