dear! It's never you and you never mean it?"
"It's ever me," says I, "and I am ever yours, and
I ever mean it." So we got married, after being
put up three times—which, by-the-by, is quite in
the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more
how the Cheap Jack customs pervade society.

She wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper.
If she could have parted with that one article
at a sacrifice, I wouldn't have swopped her away
in exchange for any other woman in England.
Not that I ever did swop her away, for we lived
together till she died, and that was thirteen
year. Now my lords and ladies and gentlefolks
all, I'll let you into a secret, though you
won't believe it. Thirteen year of temper in
a Palace would try the worst of you, but thirteen
year of temper in a Cart would try the
best of you. You are kept so very close to it in
a cart, you see. There's thousands of couples
among you, getting on like sweet ile upon a
whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs
high, that would go to the Divorce Court in a
cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I
don't undertake to decide, but in a cart it does
come home to you and stick to you. Wiolence
in a cart is so wiolent, and aggrawation in a
cart is so aggrawating.

We might have had such a pleasant life! A
roomy cart, with the large goods hung outside
and the bed slung underneath it when on the
road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the
cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging
shelf and a cupboard, a dog, and a horse.
What more do you want? You draw off upon a
bit of turf in a green lane or by the roadside,
you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing,
you light your fire upon the ashes of the last
visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn't
call the Emperor of France your father. But
have a temper in the cart, flinging language and
the hardest goods in stock at you, and where
are you then? Put a name to your feelings.

My dog knew as well when she was on the
turn as I did. Before she broke out, he would
give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it, was a
mystery to me, but the sure and certain knowledge
of it would wake him up out of his
soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and
bolt. At such times I wished I was him.

The worst of it was, we had a daughter born
to us, and I love children with all my heart.
When she was in her furies, she beat the child.
This got to be so shocking as the child got to
be four or five year old, that I have many a
time gone on with my whip over my shoulder,
at the old horse's head, sobbing and crying
worse than ever little Sophy did. For how
could I prevent it? Such a thing is not to
be tried with such a temper—in a cart—without
coming to a fight. It's in the natural
size and formation of a cart to bring it to a
fight. And then the poor child got worse
terrified than before, as well as worse hurt
generally, and her mother made complaints to
the next people we lighted on, and the word
went round, "Here's a wretch of a Cheap Jack
been a beating his wife."

Little Sophy was such a brave child! She
grew to be quite devoted to her poor father,
though he could do so little to help her. She
had a wonderful quantity of shining dark hair,
all curling natural about her. It is quite
astonishing to me now, that I didn't go tearing
mad when I used to see her run from her mother
before the cart, and her mother catch her by
this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her.

Such a brave child I said she was. Ah! with
reason.

"Don't you mind next time, father dear,"
she would whisper to me, with her little face
still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet; "if
I don't cry out, you may know I am not much
hurt. And even if I do cry out, it will only be
to get mother to let go and leave off." What
I have seen the little spirit bear—for me—
without crying out!

Yet in other respects her mother took great
care of her. Her clothes were always clean and
neat, and her mother was never tired of working
at 'em. Such is the inconsistency in things.
Our being down in the marsh country in
unhealthy weather, I consider the cause of Sophy's
taking bad low fever; but however she took
it, once she got it she turned away from her
mother for evermore, and nothing would
persuade her to be touched by her mother's hand.
She would shiver and say "No, no, no," when
it was offered at, and would hide her face on my
shoulder, and hold me tighter round the neck.

The Cheap Jack business had been worse
than ever I had known it, what with one thing
and what with another (and not least what with
railroads, which will cut it all to pieces, I expect
at last), and I was run dry of money. For
which reason, one night at that period of little
Sophy's being so bad, either we must have come
to a dead-lock for victuals and drink, or I must
have pitched the cart as I did.

I couldn't get the dear child to lie down or
leave go of me, and indeed I hadn't the heart
to try, so I stepped out on the footboard with
her holding round my neck. They all set up a
laugh when they see us, and one chuckle-headed
Joskin (that I hated for it) made the bidding,
"tuppence for her!"

"Now, you country boobies," says I, feeling
as if my heart was a heavy weight at the end of
a broken sash-line, "I give you notice that I am
a going to charm the money out of your pockets,
and to give you so much more than your money's
worth that you'll only persuade yourselves to
draw your Saturday night's wages ever again
arterwards, by the hopes of meeting me to lay 'em
out with, which you never will, and why not?
Because I've made my fortune by selling my
goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent
less than I give for 'em, and I am consequently
to be elevated to the House of Peers next week,
by the title of the Duke of Cheap and Markis
Jackaloorul. Now let's know what you want
to-night, and you shall have it. But first of all,
shall I tell you why I have got this little girl
round my neck? You don't want to know?
Then you shall. She belongs to the Fairies.