| MY lady has a tea-gown | |
| That is wondrous fair to see,— | |
| It is flounced and ruffed and plaited and puffed, | |
| As a tea-gown ought to be; | |
| And I thought she must be jesting | 5 |
| Last night at supper when | |
| She remarked, by chance, that it came from France, | |
| And had cost but two pounds ten. | |
| |
| Had she told me fifty shillings, | |
| I might (and would n't you?) | 10 |
| Have referred to that dress in a way folks express | |
| By an eloquent dash or two; | |
| But the guileful little creature | |
| Knew well her tactics when | |
| She casually said that that dream in red | 15 |
| Had cost but two pounds ten. | |
| |
| Yet our home is all the brighter | |
| For that dainty, sentient thing, | |
| That floats away where it properly may, | |
| And clings where it ought to cling; | 20 |
| And I count myself the luckiest | |
| Of all us married men | |
| That I have a wife whose joy in life | |
| Is a gown at two pounds ten. | |
| |
| It is n't the gown compels me | 25 |
| Condone this venial sin; | |
| It 's the pretty face above the lace, | |
| And the gentle heart within. | |
| And with her arms about me | |
| I say, and say again, | 30 |
| "'T was wondrous cheap,"—and I think a heap | |
| Of that gown at two pounds ten! | |
