ipping back to her parents, as young people
do in plays, and said, "Forgive me, dear Pa and Ma, I'm married, and
here is my husband the Captain!" Papa and mamma did forgive her, as why
shouldn't they? and papa paid over her fortune to her, which she carried
home delighted to the Captain. This happened several months before the
demise of old Crump; and Mrs. Captain Walker was on the Continent with
her Howard when that melancholy event took place; hence Mrs. Crump's
loneliness and unprotected condition. Morgiana had not latterly seen
much of the old people; how could she, moving in her exalted sphere,
receive at her genteel new residence in the Edgware Road the old
publican and his wife?

Being, then, alone in the world, Mrs. Crump could not abear, she said,
to live in the house where she had been so respected and happy: so she
sold the goodwill of the "Bootjack," and, with the money arising from
this sale and her own private fortune, being able to muster some sixty
pounds per annum, retired to the neighbourhood of her dear old "Sadler's
Wells," where she boarded with one of Mrs. Serle's forty pupils. Her
heart was broken, she said; but, nevertheless, about nine months after
Mr. Crump's death, the wallflowers, nasturtiums, polyanthuses, and
convolvuluses began to blossom under her bonnet as usual; in a year she
was dressed quite as fine as ever, and now never missed "The Wells," or
some other place of entertainment, one single night, but was as regular
as the box-keeper. Nay, she was a buxom widow still, and an old flame of
hers, Fisk, so celebrated as pantaloon in Grimaldi's time, but now doing
the "heavy fathers" at "The Wells," proposed to her to exchange her name
for his.

But this proposal the worthy widow declined altogether. To say truth,
she was exceedingly proud of her daughter, Mrs. Captain Walker. They
did not see each other much at first; but every now and then Mrs. Crump
would pay a visit to the folks in Connaught Square; and on the days when
"the Captain's" lady called in the City Road, there was not a single
official at "The Wells," from the first tragedian down to the call-boy,
who was not made aware of the fact.

It has been said that Morgiana carried home her fortune in her own
reticule, and, smiling, placed the money in her husband's lap; and hence
the reader may imagine, who knows Mr. Walker to be an extremely selfish
fellow, that a great scene of anger must have taken place, and many
coarse oaths a