"
"How old and shabby he looks," said Mrs. Tetterby, watching him.
"I never saw such a change in a man. Ah! dear me, dear me, dear
me, it was a sacrifice!"
"What was a sacrifice?" her husband sourly inquired.
Mrs. Tetterby shook her head; and without replying in words, raised
a complete sea-storm about the baby, by her violent agitation of
the cradle.
"If you mean your marriage was a sacrifice, my good woman - " said
her husband.
"I DO mean it" said his wife.
"Why, then I mean to say," pursued Mr. Tetterby, as sulkily and
surlily as she, "that there are two sides to that affair; and that
I was the sacrifice; and that I wish the sacrifice hadn't been
accepted."
"I wish it hadn't, Tetterby, with all my heart and soul I do assure
you," said his wife. "You can't wish it more than I do, Tetterby."
"I don't know what I saw in her," muttered the newsman, "I'm sure;
- certainly, if I saw anything, it's not there now. I was thinking
so, last night, after supper, by the fire. She's fat, she's
ageing, she won't bear comparison with most other women."
"He's common-looking, he has no air with him, he's small, he's
beginning to stoop and he's getting bald," muttered Mrs. Tetterby.
"I must have been half out of my mind when I did it," muttered Mr.
Tetterby.
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