eeth clicked to, and he sat silent with the
tankard in his hand and staring straight before him.

"Why," says Nance, setting on the ale to mull, "men are always children,
they say, however old; and if ever I heard a thing like this, to set to
and make yourself sick, just when the money's failing. Keep a good heart
up; you haven't kept a good heart these seventy years, nigh hand, to
break down about a pound or two. Here's this Mr. Archer come to lodge,
that you disliked so much. Well, now you see it was a clear Providence.
Come, let's think upon our mercies. And here is the ale mulling lovely;
smell of it; I'll take a drop myself, it smells so sweet. And, Uncle
Jonathan, you let me say one word. You've lost more than money before
now; you lost my aunt, and bore it like a man. Bear this."

His face once more contracted; his fist doubled, and shot forth into the
air, and trembled. "Let them look out!" he shouted. "Here, I warn all
men; I've done with this foul kennel of knaves. Let them look out!"

"Hush, hush! for pity's sake," cried Nance.

And then all of a sudden he dropped his face into his hands, and broke
out with a great hiccoughing dry sob that was horrible to hear. "O," he
cried, "my God, if my son hadn't left me, if my Dick was here!" and the
sobs shook him; Nance sitting still and watching him, with distress. "O,
if he were here to help his father!" he went on again. "If I had a son
like other fathers, he would save me now, when all is breaking down; O,
he would save me! Ay, but where is he? Raking taverns, a thief perhaps.
My curse be on him!" he added, rising again into wrath.

"Hush!" cried Nance, springing to her feet: "your boy, your dead wife's
boy--Aunt Susan's baby that she loved--would you curse him? O, God
forbid!"

The energy of her address surprised him from his mood. He looked upon
her, tearless and confused. "Let me go to my bed," he said at last, and
he rose, and, shaking as with ague, but quite silent, lighted his
candle, and left the kitchen.

Poor Nance! the pleasant current of her dreams was all diverted. She
beheld a golden city, where she aspired to dwell; she had spoken with a
deity, and had told herself that she might rise to be his equal; and now
the earthly ligaments that bound her down had been tightened. She was
like a tree looking skyward, her roots were in the ground. It seemed to
her a thing so coarse, so rustic, to be thus concerned about a loss in
money; when Mr. Archer, f