us."

"Then 'tis a good job Henry the Eighth wasn' a woman," commented Fancy.

"There was some such case in the Scriptures, if you'll remember; and it
says that last of all the woman died also. If she did, you may be sure
as 'twasn't till she chose."

"I heard Mr Rogers say t'other day, 'Never marry a widow unless her
first husband was hanged.'"

"Pray let us change the subjeck," said Mrs Bowldler hastily.

"Why? . . . What did Mr Bowldler die of? I've often meant to ask," said
Fancy, "and then again I've wondered sometimes if there ever was any
such person."

"There _was_ such a person." Mrs Bowldler half-closed her eyes in
dreamy reminiscence. "Further than that I would not like to commit
myself."

"He's dead, then?"

"He was a fitter in a ladies' tailorin', and naturally gay by
temperament. It led to misunderstandin's. . . . Dead? No, not that I
am aware of. For all I know he's still starrin' it somewhere in the
provinces."

She protested that for the moment she must drop the subject, which
invariably affected her with palpitations; but promised to return to it
in confidence when she felt stronger.

Throughout these days, however, and for many days to come, she
discoursed at large on the diplomacy of widows; warning Palmerston to
shape his course in avoidance of them. And that budding author--who had
already learnt to take his good things where he found them--boldly
transferred her warnings to the pages of 'Pickerley,' which thereby
arrived at resembling 'Pickwick' in one respect if in no other.

From these generalities she would hark back, at shortest notice, to the
practical present.

"It behoves us--seein' as how a tempory cloud has descended between
these two establishments--it behoves us, I say, to watch out for its
silver lining in one form or another. Which talking of silver reminds
me of electro, and I'll ask you, Palmerston, if that's the way to leave
a mustard-pot and call yourself an indoor male?"

Their estrangement had endured some three months before the rivals came
again into public collision.

The beginning of it happened through a very excusable misunderstanding.

Is Christmas Day to be reckoned as an ordinary day of the week, or as a
Sunday, or as a _dies non?_ The reader must decide.

Christmas Day that year fell on a Friday--one of the three week-days
tacitly allotted to Cai, who may therefore be forgiven that he chose to
reckon it as coming within the ordinary r