Tales and Novels — Volume 02 eBook

Mrs. Dolly in the mean time was going on spending her money in junketing.  She was, besides, no longer satisfied with taking her spoonful of brandy in every dish of tea; she found herself uncomfortable, she said, unless she took every morning fasting a full glass of the good cordial recommended to her by her friend, Mrs. Joddrell, the apothecary’s wife.  Now this good cordial, in plain English, was a strong dram.  Ellen, in the gentlest manner she could, represented to Mrs. Dolly that she was hurting her health, and was exposing herself, by this increasing habit of drinking; but she replied with anger, that what she took was for the good of her health; that everybody knew best what agreed with them; that she should trust to her own feelings; and that nobody need talk, when all she took came out of the apothecary’s shop, and was paid for honestly with her own money.

Besides what came out of the apothecary’s shop, Mrs. Dolly found it agreed with her constantly to drink a pot of porter at dinner, and another at supper; and always when she had a cold, and she had often a cold, she drank large basins full of white wine whey, “to throw off her cold,” as she said.

Then by degrees, she lost her appetite, and found she could eat nothing, unless she had a glass of brandy at dinner.  Small beer, she discovered, did not agree with her; so at luncheon time she always had a tumbler full of brandy and water.  This she carefully mixed herself, and put less and less water in every day, because brandy, she was convinced, was more wholesome for some constitutions than water; and brandy and peppermint, taken together, was an infallible remedy for all complaints, low spirits included.

CHAPTER II.

Mrs. Dolly never found herself comfortable, moreover, unless she dined abroad two or three days in the week, at a public-house, near Paddington, where she said she was more at home than she was any where else.  There was a bowling-green at this public-house, and it was a place to which tea-drinking parties resorted.  Now Mrs. Dolly often wanted to take little George out with her to these parties, and said, “It is a pity and shame to keep the poor thing always mewed up at home, without ever letting him have any pleasure!  Would not you like to go with me, George dear, in the one-horse chaise? and would not you be glad to have cakes, and tea, and all the good things that are to be had?”

“I should like to go in the one-horse chaise, to be sure, and to have cakes and tea; but I should not like to go with you, because mother does not choose it,” answered George, in his usual plain way of speaking.  Ellen, who had often seen Mrs. Dolly offer him wine and punch to drink, by way of a treat, was afraid he might gradually learn to love spirituous liquors; and that if he acquired a habit of drinking such when he was a boy, he would become a drunkard when he should grow to be a man.  George was now