"Ah, Dick, it 's not in worsted my toes are clad now. I have outgrown your stockings."
"Not you, Nell!" he cried. "By the Lord Harry! your feet have got smaller instead of larger during these years--I swear to you that is so."
"Ah, the chilblains do make a difference, Dick," said she, "and you never saw my feet unless they were covered with chilblains. Lord! how you cried when you saw my feet well covered for the first time."
"Not I---I didn't cry. What was there to cry about, Nell?" he said.
She felt very much inclined to ask him the same question at that moment, for his face was averted from her, and he had uttered his words spasmodically.
"Poor Dick! You wept because you had eaten nothing for three days in order to save enough to buy my stockings," she said.
"How know you that?" he cried, turning to her suddenly.
"I knew it not at the time," she replied, "but I have thought over it since."
"Think no more of it, Nell. O Lord! to think that I should live to see Nell again! No--no; I'll not believe it. That fine lady that I see in the big glass yonder cannot be Nell Gwyn!"
"Oh, Dick, would any one but Nell Gwyn remember about Nell Gwyn's chilblains?"
"By what means shall I convince you that I'm the Nell you knew? Let me see--ah, I know. Dick, I 'll swear for you; you know well that there was not one could match me in swearing. Let me but begin."
"O Lord! not for the world. You always knew when to begin, Nell, but you ne'er knew when to stop. And how doth it come that you have n't forgot the brimstone of the Lane, Nelly, though you have become so mighty fine a lady?"
"'Snails, Dick, the best way to remember a language is to keep constantly talking it!"
"Oh, I soon found that I only needed to double the intensity of my language in the Lane in order to talk the mother tongue of fashion."
"If swearing make the fine lady, you'll be the leader of the town, Nell, I'll warrant. But do n't say that you doubled your language--that would be impossible."
"Not so? Then for God's sake do n't give me a sample of what you reached in that way, for I 've only lived among the pirates and buccaneers of the Indies since."
"Then I'll e'en spare thee, Dick. But take warning: do n't provoke me. You would n't provoke a pirate whose guns you knew to be double-shotted. Do n't say that I'm not Nell Gwyn for all my silks and lace. Why, man, doth oatmeal porridge cease to be porridge because it's served in a silver platter? Did your salt pork turn to venison when you ate it off the gold plate that you stole from the chapels?"