Oh, just as you please about going, my dear; only you know that if you desert my bed and board, the law gives the boy to me. Mrs. E. I don’t believe it’s any such thing; and if it is, it is because men made the law. Women wouldn’t take a baby away from its mother. Mr. E. Have what theories you choose, my dear; only please let me get a few crumbs of sleep, now the radiator has had the mercy to subside. Mrs. E. You are a brute, and I won’t ever speak to you again! [She firmly assumes a stony silence, and the radiator, after a few concluding ejaculations and metallic objurgations, also relapses into comparative stillness. Mr. Ellston’s breathing begins to give strong indications that slumber has re-descended upon his weary frame.] Mrs. E. (starting up with the inspiration of an entirely new and startling idea) George! George! George! Mr. E. (with less good humor than might be desired) Eh? Mrs. E. Wasn’t it wonderful for baby to sleep through it all? Mr. E. (drowsily) Yes; droll little beggar. His mother wasn’t in the nursery to wake him, though. [161] [161] Mrs. E. You don’t suppose there is anything the matter with him? George! George, I say! you don’t suppose the reason he sleeps so soundly is because he’s sick? [To this conundrum Mr. Ellston offers no solution, and equally passes in silence queries in regard to the probability of the nurse’s being awake, alive, well-disposed, and able to take care of baby in case of emergency. Mrs. Ellston sighs with the desperation of long-suffering anguish, and once more stillness reigns in the chamber. The lady again arouses herself, however, from an apparently sound nap to ask, in penetrating tones,—] “George, do you think it will begin all over again?” (To which her brutal worser half grumbles out the reply) “No! and that’s where it is more endurable than a woman.” [At which the radiator gives a chuckle so apt as to suggest the possession of a sinister consciousness on the part of that noisy instrument of torture. Mrs. Ellston groans, with the discouraged conviction that she is but one against two, and
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