bride, for all her tender pity, felt
happier when she had heard her landlady's moving tale of the wickedness
of man, which cast in bright relief the glory of that one hero who was
hers. Then from a short flight of inconceivable bliss, she fell, shot by
one of her hundred Argus-eyed fears.

"O Mrs. Berry! I'm so young! Think of me--only just seventeen!"

Mrs. Berry immediately dried her eyes to radiance. "Young, my dear!
Nonsense! There's no so much harm in being young, here and there. I knew
an Irish lady was married at fourteen. Her daughter married close over
fourteen. She was a grandmother by thirty! When any strange man began,
she used to ask him what pattern caps grandmothers wore. They'd stare!
Bless you! the grandmother could have married over and over again. It was
her daughter's fault, not hers, you know."

"She was three years younger," mused Lucy.

"She married beneath her, my dear. Ran off with her father's bailiff's
son. 'Ah, Berry!' she'd say, 'if I hadn't been foolish, I should be my
lady now--not Granny!' Her father never forgave her--left all his estates
out of the family."

"Did her husband always love her?" Lucy preferred to know.

"In his way, my dear, he did," said Mrs. Berry, coming upon her
matrimonial wisdom. "He couldn't help himself. If he left off, he began
again. She was so clever, and did make him so comfortable. Cook! there
wasn't such another cook out of a Alderman's kitchen; no, indeed! And she
a born lady! That tells ye it's the duty of all women! She had her saying
'When the parlour fire gets low, put coals on the ketchen fire!' and a
good saying it is to treasure. Such is man! no use in havin' their hearts
if ye don't have their stomachs."

Perceiving that she grew abstruse, Mrs. Berry added briskly: "You know
nothing about that yet, my dear. Only mind me and mark me: don't neglect
your cookery. Kissing don't last: cookery do!"

Here, with an aphorism worthy a place in The Pilgrim'S Scrip, she broke
off to go posseting for her dear invalid. Lucy was quite well; very eager
to be allowed to rise and be ready when the knock should come. Mrs.
Berry, in her loving considerateness for the little bride, positively
commanded her to lie down, and be quiet, and submit to be nursed and
cherished. For Mrs. Berry well knew that ten minutes alone with the hero
could only be had while the little bride was in that unattainable
position.

Thanks to her strategy, as she thought, her object was