n
what they goes and does they ain't quite answerable for: they, feels, I
daresay, pushed from behind. Yes. I'll go. I'm a frump. I'll go. 'Tain't
in natur' for me to sleep in the same house."

Lucy laid her hands on Mrs. Berry's shoulders, and forcibly fixed her in
her seat. "Leave baby, naughty woman? I tell you he shall come to you,
and fall on his knees to you and beg your forgiveness."

"Berry on his knees!"

"Yes. And he shall beg and pray you to forgive him."

"If you get more from Martin Berry than breath-away words, great'll be
my wonder!" said Mrs. Berry.

"We will see," said Lucy, thoroughly determined to do something for the
good creature that had befriended her.

Mrs. Berry examined her gown. "Won't it seem we're runnin' after him?"
she murmured faintly.

"He is your husband, Mrs. Berry. He may be wanting to come to you now."

"Oh! Where is all I was goin' to say to that man when we met." Mrs.
Berry ejaculated. Lucy had left the room.

On the landing outside the door Lucy met a lady dressed in black, who
stopped her and asked if she was Richard's wife, and kissed her, passing
from her immediately. Lucy despatched a message for Austin, and related
the Berry history. Austin sent for the great man and said: "Do you
know your wife is here?" Before Berry had time to draw himself up to
enunciate his longest, he was requested to step upstairs, and as his
young mistress at once led the way, Berry could not refuse to put his
legs in motion and carry the stately edifice aloft.

Of the interview Mrs. Berry gave Lucy a slight sketch that night. "He
began in the old way, my dear, and says I, a true heart and plain words,
Martin Berry. So there he cuts himself and his Johnson short, and down
he goes--down on his knees. I never could 'a believed it. I kep my
dignity as a woman till I see that sight, but that done for me. I was a
ripe apple in his arms 'fore I knew where I was. There's something about
a fine man on his knees that's too much for us women. And it reely was
the penitent on his two knees, not the lover on his one. If he mean it!
But ah! what do you think he begs of me, my dear?--not to make it known
in the house just yet! I can't, I can't say that look well."

Lucy attributed it to his sense of shame at his conduct, and Mrs. Berry
did her best to look on it in that light.

"Did the bar'net kiss ye when you wished him goodnight?" she asked. Lucy
said he had not. "Then bide awake as long as ye can,