I shall tell the landlady to order your Christmas dinner.

How about wine?
There is champagne, I know, and bottled ale.

Sherry?
I'll drop a letter to my wine-merchant; I think the sherry's running dry." Her sense of hearing was now afflicted in as gross a manner as had been her sense of smell.

She could not have spoken, though her vitality had pressed for speech.

It would have astonished him to hear that his solicitude concerning provender for her during his absence was not esteemed a kindness; for surely it is a kindly thing to think of it; and for whom but for one for whom he cared would he be counting the bottles to be left at her disposal, insomuch that the paucity of the bottles of sherry in the establishment distressed his mental faculties?
"Well, good-bye," he said, finally.