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LECTURE XXI.

MR. CAUDLE HAS NOT ACTED "LIKE A HUSBAND" AT THE WEDDING DINNER.

MR. CAUDLE AND MISS PRETTYMAN.

"Ah, me! It's no use wishing—none at all: but I do wish that yesterday fourteen years could come back again. Little did I think, Mr. Caudle, when you brought me home from church, your lawful wedded wife—little, I say, did I think that I should keep my wedding dinner in the manner I have done to-day. Fourteen years ago! Yes, I see you now, in your blue coat with bright buttons, and your white watered-satin waistcoat, and a moss-rose bud in your button-hole, which you said was like me. What?

"You never talked such nonsense?

"Ha! Mr. Caudle, you don't know what you talked that day—but I do. Yes; and you then sat at the table as if your face, as I may say, was buttered with

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