“ You! ” cried Annie, with a touch of scorn. “Do you think I would trust a man with it? No; that’s a woman’s work. Why, you would let the fellow offer you half it was worth—and you would take it too. I shall show it to Mrs. Whitmore: she will know what I ought to get for it. She’s had to do the thing herself—too often, poor thing!”
“It would be like tearing my heart out.”
“What! to part with my pretty chemise. Hector, dear, you must not be foolish! What does it matter, so long as we are not cheating anybody? The pawnshop is a most honorable and useful institution. No one is the worse for it, and many a one the better. Even the tradespeople will be a trifle the better. I shall be quite proud to know that I have a pawn-ticket in my pocket to fall back upon. Oh, there’s that old silk dress your mother sent me—I do believe that would bring more. It is in good condition, and looks quite respectable. If Eve had got into a scrape like ours, she would have been helpless, poor thing, not having anything to put away —that is the right word, I believe. There is really nothing disgraceful about it. Come now, dear, and eat your eggs—I’m afraid you must do without butter. I always preferred a piece of dry bread with an egg—you get the true taste of the egg so much better. One day or another we must part with everything. It is sure to come. Sooner or later, what does that matter? ‘The readiness is all,’ as Hamlet says. Death, or the pawnshop, signifies nothing. ‘Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is it to leave betimes?’ We do but forestall the grave for one brief hour with the pawnshop.”
“You deserve to have married Epictetus, Annie, you brave woman, instead of Xantippe!”
“I prefer you, Hector.”
“But what might you have said if he had asked you, and you had heard me bemoaning the pawnshop?”