Why,
never was anyone half so fortunate as I am."
"Yes," said I, "you have been inoculated for marriage, and have
recovered."
"And yet," he said, "I was very fond of her till she took to
drinking."
"Perhaps; but is it not Tennyson who has said: ''Tis better to
have loved and lost, than never to have lost at all'?"
"You are an inveterate bachelor," was the rejoinder.
Then we had a long talk with John, to whom I gave a L5 note upon the
spot. He said Ellen had used to drink at Battersby; the cook had
taught her; he had known it, but was so fond of her, that he had
chanced it and married her to save her from the streets and in the
hope of being able to keep her straight. She had done with just as she
had done with Ernest- made him an excellent wife as long as she kept
sober, but a very bad one afterwards.
"There isn't," said John, "a sweeter-tempered, handier, prettier
girl than she was in all England, nor one as knows better what a man
likes, and how to make him happy, if you can keep her from drink;
but you can't keep her; she's that artful she'll get it under your
very eyes, without you knowing it. If she can't get any more of your
things to pawn or sell, she'll steal her neighbours'.
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