in daily and nightly toil to procure the means of ease and luxury for those who would banish us from their hearts, and from our own homes because we had fainted, not faltered in their service. You must have placed before you evidence of genuine bonâ fide cruelty in the ordinary and reasonable acceptation of the term, before you would think it right to darken the whole of a man’s future existence, and to extinguish the fire upon his once happy hearth. Now how does the case stand between Mr. and Mrs. Barber, save in the one solitary instance of alleged cruelty at Cheltenham of which I will speak presently?—for as for the ridiculous story of Mr. Barber’s setting fire to the lady’s nose at Folkestone I will not insult your understanding by laying very great stress upon that.” (Here Dr. Lobb whispered something to his chief, who continued): “I beg your pardon, Gentlemen, I am reminded by my learned friend that there is a second instance charged, when Mr. Barber, as she alleges, cut off her hair at Brussels—that is to say—as we assert, at her own request pulled out a few gray hairs from her head which were to the lady the first indication that her dazzling beauty was but of mortal mould—”
Provocation.
Here Mrs. Barber jumped up from her seat, and Ann Iron sat down, so that the lady stood fully revealed to the Court, but Mr. Shuttlecock—not one whit abashed by the splendid vision, and talking at the lady, continued:
—“‘that all that’s bright must fade,’ and the time was not far distant when those charms which had captivated Mr. Barber’s heart, and not proved wholly without effect upon general society, must somewhat sink from their meridian splendour; when the bright eye would fall dull; the graceful form lose somewhat of its taper and enchanting proportions; the smooth brow be deformed with wrinkles—and nothing survive worthy of admiration but the memory of a well-spent life—”
Mrs. Barber sate down again, and Ann Iron stood up. The two Misses Barber clutched their skinny fingers with diabolical glee, and nodded at each other like the witches in Macbeth when the slab mixture in their infernal caldron is bubbling to their satisfaction, and emitting the correct devil’s-truffle stench so grateful to Hecate and her friends at their little ré-unions.
Mr. Shuttlecock was evidently a man of different mould to Dr. Lobb, he continued:
“Beyond this instance named, of which, Gentlemen, I promise you that I will render, and Mr. Barber will render due account, what remains? Mrs. Barber says, My husband’s sisters wore two flannel dressing gowns—dissolve my marriage! The same two ladies, whose fostering care and open hospitality I repaid with the grossest ingratitude, upon one occasion put my hair into curl-papers;—Mrs. Barber’s hair, Gentlemen, plays a very lead-