Читать книгу Reveries of a Bachelor; or, A Book of the Heart онлайн

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What sad, thin, poorly-cooked chops, to eat with your rolls!

—She thinks they are very good, and wonders how you can set such an example to your children.

The butter is nauseating.

—She has no other, and hopes you’ll not raise a storm about butter a little turned. I think I see myself—ruminated I—sitting meekly at table, scarce daring to lift up my eyes, utterly fagged out with some quarrel of yesterday, choking down detestably sour muffins that my wife thinks are “delicious”—slipping in dried mouthfuls of burned ham off the side of my fork tines—slipping off my chair sideways at the end, and slipping out with my hat between my knees, to business, and never feeling myself a competent, sound-minded man till the oak door is between me and Peggy!

—“Ha, ha—not yet!” said I; and in so earnest a tone that my dog started to his feet—cocked his eye to have a good look into my face—met my smile of triumph with an amiable wag of the tail, and curled up again in the corner.

Again, Peggy is rich enough, well enough, mild enough, only she doesn’t care a fig for you. She has married you because father, or grandfather thought the match eligible, and because she didn’t wish to disoblige them. Besides, she didn’t positively hate you, and thought you were a respectable enough young person; she has told you so repeatedly at dinner. She wonders you like to read poetry; she wishes you would buy her a good cookbook; and insists upon you making your will at the birth of the first baby.