ever express. I finished by saying, “I’ll give you Steerforth! God bless him! Hurrah!” We gave him three times three, and another, and a good one to finish with. I broke my glass in going round the table to shake hands with him, and I said (in two words) “Steerforth—you’retheguidingstarofmyexistence.”
I went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of a song. Markham was the singer, and he sang “When the heart of a man is depressed with care.” He said, when he had sung it, he would give us “Woman!” I took objection to that, and I couldn’t allow it. I said it was not a respectful way of proposing the toast, and I would never permit that toast to be drunk in my house otherwise than as “The Ladies!” I was very high with him, mainly I think because I saw Steerforth and Grainger laughing at me—or at him—or at both of us. He said a man was not to be dictated to. I said a man was . He said a man was not to be insulted, then. I said he was right there—never under my roof, where the Lares were sacred, and the laws of hospitality paramount.