After dinner, Lady L----, Lady G----, and I, found an opportunity to be
by ourselves for one half hour. Lady G---- asked Lady L---- what she
intended to do with the thousand pounds with which Lord W---- had so
generously presented her?--Do with it, my dear!--What do you think I
intend to do with it?--It is already disposed of.
I'll be hanged, said Lady G----, if this good creature has not given it
to her husband.
Indeed, Charlotte, I have. I gave it to him before I slept.
I thought so! She laughed--And Lord L---- took it! Did he?
To be sure he did. I should otherwise have been displeased with him.
Dear, good soul!--And so you gave him a thousand pounds to take part of
it back from him, by four or five paltry guineas at a time, at his
pleasure?
Lord L---- and I, Charlotte, have but one purse. You may not perhaps,
know how we manage it?
Pray, good, meek, dependent creature! how do you manage it?
Thus, Charlotte: My lord knows that his wife and he have but one
interest; and from the first of our happy marriage, he would make me take
one key, as he has another, of the private drawer, where his money and
money-bills lie. There is a little memorandum-book in the drawer, in
which he enters on one page, the money he receives; on the opposite, the
money he takes out: and when I want money, I have recourse to my key. If
I see but little in the drawer, I am the more moderate; or, perhaps, if
my want is not urgent, defer the supplying of it till my lord is richer:
but, little or much, I minute down the sum, as he himself does; and so we
know what we are about; and I never put it out of my lord's power, by my
unseasonable expenses, to preserve that custom of his, for which he is as
much respected, as well served; not to suffer a demand to be twice made
upon him where he is a debtor.
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