These sweethearts
were not alone, could not open their hearts, must not even gaze too long;
yet to be in the same room even on such terms was a taste of Heaven.
"But, dear heart!" said Mrs. Maxley, "ye don't tell me what he ailed.
Ma'am, if you had seen him you would have said he was taken for death."
"Pray what _is_ the complaint?" inquired Mrs. Dodd.
"Oh, didn't I tell ye? Poisoned."
This intelligence was conveyed with true scientific calmness, and
received with feminine ejaculations of horror. Mrs. Maxley was indignant
into the bargain: "Don't ye go giving my house an ill name! We keeps no
poison."
Sampson fixed his eyes sternly on her: "Wumman, ye know better: ye keep
strychnine, for th' use and delectation of your domestic animal."
"Strychnine! I never heard tell of it. Is that Latin for arsenic?"
"Now isn't this lamentable? Why, arsenic is a mital; strychnine a
vigitable. N'hist me! Your man was here seeking strychnine to poison his
mouse; a harmless, domistic, necessary mouse. I told him mice were a part
of Nature as much as Maxleys, and life as sweet tit as tim: but he was
dif to scientific and chrisehin preceps; so I told him to go to the
Deevil: 'I will,' sis he, and went t' a docker.
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