wed to stay, but Mrs. Mel
could not trust him. She ought to have told him so, perhaps. Explanations
were not approved of by this well-intended despot, and however beneficial
her resolves might turn out for all parties, it was natural that in the
interim the children of her rule should revolt, and Dandy, picturing his
Sally flaunting on the arm of some accursed low marine, haply, kicked
against Mrs. Mel's sovereignty, though all that he did was to shoot out
his fist from time to time, and grunt through his set teeth: 'Iron!' to
express the character of her awful rule.

Mrs. Mel alighted at the Dolphin, the landlady of which was a Mrs.
Hawkshaw, a rival of Mrs. Sockley of the Green Dragon. She was welcomed
by Mrs. Hawkshaw with considerable respect. The great Mel had sometimes
slept at the Dolphin.

'Ah, that black!' she sighed, indicating Mrs. Mel's dress and the story
it told.

'I can't give you his room, my dear Mrs. Harrington, wishing I could! I'm
sorry to say it's occupied, for all I ought to be glad, I dare say, for
he's an old gentleman who does you a good turn, if you study him. But
there! I'd rather have had poor dear Mr. Harrington in my best bed than
old or young--Princes or nobodies, I would--he was that grand and
pleasant.'

Mrs. Mel had her tea in Mrs. Hawkshaw's parlour, and was entertained
about her husband up to the hour of supper, when a short step and a
querulous voice were heard in the passage, and an old gentleman appeared
before them.

'Who's to carry up my trunk, ma'am? No man here?'

Mrs. Hawkshaw bustled out and tried to lay her hand on a man. Failing to
find the growth spontaneous, she returned and begged the old gentleman to
wait a few moments and the trunk would be sent up.

'Parcel o' women!' was his reply. 'Regularly bedevilled. Gets worse and
worse. I 'll carry it up myself.'

With a wheezy effort he persuaded the trunk to stand on one end, and then
looked at it. The exertion made him hot, which may account for the rage
he burst into when Mrs. Hawkshaw began flutteringly to apologize.

'You're sure, ma'am, sure--what are you sure of? I'll tell you what I am
sure of--eh? This keeping clear of men's a damned pretence. You don't
impose upon me. Don't believe in your pothouse nunneries--not a bit. Just
like you! when you are virtuous it's deuced inconvenient. Let one of the
maids try? No. Don't believe in 'em.'

Having thus relieved his spleen the old gentleman addressed himself to