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THE CHIMES. |
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" He didn't lose everything, Mrs. Tugby," returned the gentleman, "because he gained a wife; and I want to know how he gained her."
" I'm coming to it, Sir, in a moment. This went on for years and years; he sinking lower and lower ; she enduring, poor thing, miseries enough to wear her life away. At last, he was so cast down, and cast out, that no one would employ or notice him; and doors were shut upon him, go where he would. Applying from place to place, and door to door; and coming for the hundredth time to one gentleman who had often and often tried him (he was a good workman to the very end); that gentleman, who knew his history, said, ' I believe you are incorrigible \ there is only one person in the world who has a chance of reclaiming you; ask me to trust you no more, until she tries to do it.' Something like that, in his anger and vexation."
" Ah ! " said the gentleman. " Well ?"
" Well Sir, he went to her, and kneeled to her; said it was so; said it ever had been so ; and made a prayer to her to save him."
"And she—Don't distress yourself, Mrs. Tugby."
"She came to me that night to ask me about living here. 'What he was once to me,' she said, 'is buried in a grave; side by side with what I was to him. But I have thought of this; and I will make the trial. In the hope of saving him; for the love of the light-hearted girl (you remember her) who was to have been married on a New Year's Day; and for the love of her Richard.' And she said he had come to her from Lilian, and Lilian had trusted to him, and she never could forget that. So they were married; and when they came home here, and I saw them, I hoped that such prophecies as parted them when they were young, may not often fulfil themselves as they did in this case, or I wouldn't be the makers of them for a Mine of Gold."
The gentleman got off the cask, and stretched himself, observing:
" I suppose he used her ill, as soon as they were married ?"
" I don't think he ever did that," said Mrs. Tugby, shaking her head, and wiping her eyes. " He went on better for a short time; but, his habits were too old and strong to be got rid of; he soon fell back a little; and was falling fast back, when his illness came so strong upon him. I think he has always felt for her. I am sure he has. I have seen him, in his crying fits and tremblings, try to kiss her hand; and I have heard him call her ' Meg,' and say it was her nineteenth birthday. There he has been lying, now, these weeks and months. Between him and her baby, she has not
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