he could only keep the
dear boy at 'ome, but she's faithful to her promise, an' advises him to
go--the sooner the better--because that would let him come back to her
all the quicker. Master Will, he vowed at first that he would never
more leave her, and I b'lieve he was in earnest, but when she spoke of
his father's wish, he gave in an' said he would go, if she thought it
his dooty so for to do."

"Hooray!" shouted Larry, jumping up at this point, and performing a
species of war-dance for a few moments, and then sitting down and
demanding another supply of tea. "Didn't I tell ye, Bunco, that the
order would soon be up anchor an' away again! It's Wanderin' Will he's
been named, an' Wanderin' Will he'll remain, that's as plain as the nose
on me face."

"No doubt the nose on your face is very plain--the plainest I ever did
see," said Maryann sharply,--"but you're quite wrong about Master Will,
for he's very anxious to get married, I can tell you, an' wants to
settle down at 'ome, like a sensible man, though it does grieve my 'eart
to think of the creetur as has took him in in furrin parts."

"Get married!" exclaimed Larry, Jemima, and Richards in the same breath.

"Yes, get married," replied Maryann, very full of the importance of her
keyhole discoveries, and not willing to make them known too readily.

"How did you come to know that, Maryhann?" asked Jemima; "are you sure
of it?"

"How I came for to know it," replied the other, "is nobody's business
(she paused a moment and looked sternly at Richards, but that sensible
man continued to gaze steadfastly at his plate and to `scrunch' crusts
with grave abstraction), and, as to its bein' true, all I can say is I
had it from his own lips. Master Will has no objection to my knowing
what he tells his mother--as no more he shouldn't, for Jemimar, you can
bear me witness that I've been a second mother to him, an' used to love
him as if he were my own--though he _was_ a aggrawatin' hinfant, an'
used to bump his 'ead, an' skin his knees, an' tear his clothes, an' wet
his feet, in a way that often distracted me, though I did my very best
to prevent it; but nothink's of any use tryin' of w'en you can't do it;
as my 'usband, as was in the mutton-pie line, said to the doctor the
night afore he died--my 'eart used to be quite broke about him, so it
did; but that's all past an' gone--well, as I was a-sayin', Master Will
he told his mother as 'ow there was a young lady (so he cal