nd by her industry, geniality
and frugality, got on tolerably well. In due course she rented a small
house backed by a small green, and advertised for a gentleman lodger. She
soon got one; and soon got rid of him. However, she was never long
without one.

Nancy met Joseph Wylie in company. And, as sailors are brisk wooers, he
soon became her acknowledged suitor, and made some inroad into her heart,
though she kept on the defensive, warned by past experience.

Wylie's love-making had a droll feature about it; it was most of it
carried on in the presence of three washerwomen, because Nancy had no
time to spare from her work, and Wylie had no time to lose in his wooing,
being on shore for a limited period. And this absence of superfluous
delicacy on his part gave him an unfair advantage over the
tallow-chandler's foreman, his only rival at present. Many a sly thrust,
and many a hearty laugh, from his female auditors, greeted his amorous
eloquence. But, for all that, they sided with him, and Nancy felt her
importance, and brightened along with her mates at the sailor's approach,
which was generally announced by a cheerful hail. He was good company, to
use Nancy's own phrase, and she accepted him as a sweetheart on
probation. But, when Mr. Wylie urged her to marry him, she demurred, and
gave a string of reasons, all of which the sailor and his allies, the
subordinate washerwomen, combated in full conclave.

Then she spoke out: "My lad, the washtub is a saddle as won't carry
double. I've seen poverty enough in my mother's house; it shan't come in
at my door to drive love out o' window. Two comes together with just
enough for two; next year instead of two they are three, and one of the
three can't work and wants a servant extra, and by and by there is half a
dozen, and the money coming in at the spigot and going out at the
bung-hole."

One day, in the middle of his wooing, she laid down her iron, and said:
"You come along with me. And I wonder how much work will be done while my
back is turned, for you three gabbling and wondering what ever I'm a
going to do with this here sailor."

She took Wylie a few yards down the street, and showed him a large house
with most of the windows broken. "There," said she, "there's a sight for
a seafaring man. That's in Chancery."

"Well, it's better to be there than in H--," said Wylie, meaning to be
sharper.

"Wait till you've tried 'em both," said Nancy.

Then she took him to the b