MILLIKEN.--Are you drunk or mad, Howell?

JOHN.--I'm as sober and as sensible as ever I was in my life, sir--I not
only struck the master, but I struck the man, who's twice as big, only
not quite as big a coward, I think.

MILLIKEN.--Hold your scurrilous tongues sir! My good nature ruins
everybody about me. Make up your accounts. Pack your trunks--and never
let me see your face again.

JOHN.--Very good, sir.

MILLIKEN.--I suppose, Miss Prior, you will also be disposed to--to
follow Mr. Howell?

MISS P.--To quit you, now you know what has passed? I never supposed
it could be otherwise--I deceived you, Mr. Milliken--as I kept a secret
from you, and must pay the penalty. It is a relief to me, the sword has
been hanging over me. I wish I had told your poor wife, as I was often
minded to do.

MILLIKEN.--Oh, you were minded to do it in Italy, were you?

MISS P.--Captain Touchit knew it, sir, all along: and that my motives
and, thank God, my life were honorable.

MILLIKEN.--Oh, Touchit knew it, did he? and thought it
honorable--honorable. Ha! ha! to marry a footman--and keep a
public-house? I--I beg your pardon, John Howell--I mean nothing against
you, you know. You're an honorable man enough, except that you have been
damned insolent to my brother-in-law.

JOHN.--Oh, heaven! [JOHN strikes his forehead, and walks away.]

MISS P.--You mistake me, sir. What I wished to speak of was the fact
which this gentleman has no doubt communicated to you--that I danced on
the stage for three months.

MILLIKEN.--Oh, yes. Oh, damme, yes. I forgot. I wasn't thinking of that.

KICKLEBURY.--You see she owns it.

MISS P.--We were in the depths of poverty. Our furniture and
lodging-house under execution--from which Captain Touchit, when he came
to know of our difficulties, nobly afterwards released us. My father was
in prison, and wanted shillings for medicine, and I--I went and danced
on the stage.

MILLIKEN.--Well?

MISS P.--And I kept the secret afterwards; knowing that I could never
hope as governess to obtain a place after having been a stage-dancer.

MILLIKEN.--Of course you couldn't,--it's out of the question; and may I
ask, are you going to resume that delightful profession when you enter
the married state with Mr. Howell?

MISS P.--Poor John! it is not I who am going to--that is, it's Mary, the
school-room maid.

MILLIKEN.--Eternal blazes! Have you turned Mormon, John Howell, and are
you going to marry the whol