very moment, a bed without a pair in 'un for miles
round."

"But how do the folks here contrive to pig it away together six in a
bed?" inquired Mr Vernon Wycherley. "Your beds must be very large,
otherwise I should fancy such close stowage to be hardly possible."

"O na, sir, you don't onderstand," replied the maid, hardly able to
restrain herself from laughing outright at the stranger's gross
ignorance of mining habits; "not pair[39] o' six all to bed together to
one time; you da see miners do work to bal[40] eight hours to a spell,
and has sexteen to stay 'bove ground; so one and his comarade sleeps
their first eight hours 'bove ground, and then turns out for the next
pair; and so they goes on, one pair in and t'other pair out, so that
between sex on 'um, the bed's never to say quite empty."

"And can never, of course, require a warming-pan," remarked Frank.

"Lar! tha b'est a queer little chap," thought Mary; but being too polite
to say as much, she merely smiled pleasantly at the remark, as she
tripped out of the room.

"Well, as we must toddle further, it's of little use to put so grave a
face upon it, old fellow," observed Frank to his poetical friend, who
was indulging in a reverie, with his eyes fixed in vacancy towards the
burning embers in the grate.

"Eh! what?" demanded Vernon, with the usual start of an absent literary
man, whose attention is suddenly awakened. Frank repeated his previous
remark.

"My thoughts were far, far away from hence," said Mr Vernon Wycherley;
"the subject of them was my comedy, which, as you know, I intend to
offer for the prize at the Haymarket."

"Your comedy be hanged!" interrupted Frank.

"I fear that even a direr fate than that awaits it," resumed its author.
"Oh! if I had but seen _her_ before I arranged my female
characters--have carried her beauteous image in my mind, as now I
mentally behold her"--

"What! Molly Potts?" interposed Mr Frank Trevelyan, with a look of arch
innocence--such a funny look it was, as no man living but Frank himself
could possibly have given.

"Pshaw," said Vernon impatiently, "how can you find the heart to mention
her name, if such indeed it be, in that disagreeable tone and manner? It
is enough to drive away every poetic idea connected with her. If you can
only mention her name in that cold tone of contempt, I'd thank you to
hold your tongue about her altogether."

With this remark, the poet took a manuscript book from a pocket in h