Tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the
more cheerful his intended bride became in Dot's society, the less
he liked it, though he had brought them together for that purpose.
For he was a regular dog in the manger, was Tackleton; and when
they laughed and he couldn't, he took it into his head,
immediately, that they must be laughing at him.
'Ah, May!' said Dot. 'Dear dear, what changes! To talk of those
merry school-days makes one young again.'
'Why, you an't particularly old, at any time; are you?' said
Tackleton.
'Look at my sober plodding husband there,' returned Dot. 'He adds
twenty years to my age at least. Don't you, John?'
'Forty,' John replied.
'How many YOU'll add to May's, I am sure I don't know,' said Dot,
laughing. 'But she can't be much less than a hundred years of age
on her next birthday.'
'Ha ha!' laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum, that laugh though.
And he looked as if he could have twisted Dot's neck, comfortably.
'Dear dear!' said Dot. 'Only to remember how we used to talk, at
school, about the husbands we would choose.
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