named no sooner heard these words, than
deserting a small boy and a very large box by which she was accompanied,
and advancing with such precipitation that her bonnet flew off her head,
burst into the room, clasped her hands (in which she held a pair of
pattens, one in each), raised her eyes devotedly to the ceiling, and
shed a flood of tears.

'The old story!' cried the locksmith, looking at her in inexpressible
desperation. 'She was born to be a damper, this young woman! nothing can
prevent it!'

'Ho master, ho mim!' cried Miggs, 'can I constrain my feelings in these
here once agin united moments! Ho Mr Warsen, here's blessedness
among relations, sir! Here's forgivenesses of injuries, here's
amicablenesses!'

The locksmith looked from his wife to Dolly, and from Dolly to Joe, and
from Joe to Miggs, with his eyebrows still elevated and his mouth still
open. When his eyes got back to Miggs, they rested on her; fascinated.

'To think,' cried Miggs with hysterical joy, 'that Mr Joe, and dear
Miss Dolly, has raly come together after all as has been said and done
contrairy! To see them two a-settin' along with him and her, so pleasant
and in all respects so affable and mild; and me not knowing of it, and
not being in the ways to make no preparations for their teas. Ho what a
cutting thing it is, and yet what sweet sensations is awoke within me!'

Either in clasping her hands again, or in an ecstasy of pious joy, Miss
Miggs clinked her pattens after the manner of a pair of cymbals, at this
juncture; and then resumed, in the softest accents:

'And did my missis think--ho goodness, did she think--as her own Miggs,
which supported her under so many trials, and understood her natur'
when them as intended well but acted rough, went so deep into her
feelings--did she think as her own Miggs would ever leave her? Did she
think as Miggs, though she was but a servant, and knowed that servitudes
was no inheritances, would forgit that she was the humble instruments
as always made it comfortable between them two when they fell out,
and always told master of the meekness and forgiveness of her blessed
dispositions! Did she think as Miggs had no attachments! Did she think
that wages was her only object!'

To none of these interrogatories, whereof every one was more
pathetically delivered than the last, did Mrs Varden answer one word:
but Miggs, not at all abashed by this circumstance, turned to the
small boy in attendance--her elde