man slips there is no help for it but she must be smashed.

Seeing that each looked as implacable as the other, Mrs. Chump called
plaintively, "Arr'bella!"

The lady spoke:--

"We are willing to be your friends, Mrs. Chump, and we request that you
will consider us in that light. We simply do not consent to give you a
name...."

"But, we'll do without the name, my dear," interposed Mrs. Chump. "Ye'll
call me plain Martha, which is almost mother, and not a bit of 't.
There--Cornelia, my love! what do ye say?"

"I can only reiterate my sister's words, which demand no elucidation,"
replied Cornelia.

The forlorn woman turned her lap towards the youngest.

"Ad'la! ye sweet little cajoler! And don't use great cartwheels o' words
that leave a body crushed."

Adela was suffering from a tendency to levity, which she knew to be
unbefitting the occasion, and likely to defeat its significance. She
said: "I am sure, Mrs. Chump, we are very much attached to you as Mrs.
Chump; but after a certain period of life, marriage does make people
ridiculous, and, as much for your sake as our own, we would advise
you to discard a notion that cannot benefit anybody. Believe in our
attachment; and we shall see you here now and then, and correspond with
you when you are away. And...."

"Oh, ye puss! such an eel as y' are!" Mrs. Chump cried out. "What are
ye doin' but sugarin' the same dose, miss! Be qu't! It's a traitor that
makes what's nasty taste agree'ble. D'ye think my stomach's a fool? Ye
may wheedle the mouth, but not the stomach."

At this offence there fell a dead silence. Wilfrid gazed on them all
indifferently, waiting for the moment to strike a final blow.

When she had grasped the fact that Pity did not sit in the assembly,
Mrs. Chump rose.

"Oh! if I haven't been sitting among three owls and a raven," she
exclaimed. Then she fussed at her gown. "I wish ye good day, young
ladus, and mayhap ye'd like to be interduced to No. 2 yourselves, some
fine mornin'? Prov'dence can wait. There's a patient hen on the eggs
of all of ye! I wouldn't marry Pole now--not if he was to fall flat and
howl for me. Mr. Wilfrud, I wish ye good-bye. Ye've done your work. I'll
be out of this house in half-an-hour."

This was not quite what Wilfrid had meant to effect. He proposed to her
that she should come to the yacht, and indeed leave Brookfield to go on
board. But Mrs. Chump was in that frame of mind when, shamefully wounded
by others, we