nity was gone.

On the following morning, when Matthew appeared at his bedside with his
cup of tea at nine o'clock, tidings were brought him. He took in the
Buntingford _Gazette_, which came twice a week, and as Matthew laid it,
opened and unread, in its accustomed place, he gave the information,
which he had no doubt gotten from the paper. "You haven't heard it, sir,
I suppose, as yet?"

"Heard what?"

"About Miss Puffle."

"What about Miss Puffle? I haven't heard a word. What about Miss
Puffle?" He had been thinking that moment of Miss Puffle,--of how she
would be superior to Miss Thoroughbung in many ways,--so that he sat up
in his bed, holding the untasted tea in his hand.

"She's gone off with young Farmer Tazlehurst."

"Miss Puffle gone off, and with her father's tenant's son!"

"Yes indeed, sir. She and her father have been quarrelling for the last
ten years, and now she's off. She was always riding and roistering about
the country with them dogs and them men; and now she's gone."

"Oh heavens!" exclaimed the squire, thinking of his own escape.

"Yes, indeed, sir. There's no knowing what any one of them is up to.
Unless they gets married afore they're thirty, or thirty-five at most,
they're most sure to get such ideas into their head as no one can mostly
approve." This had been intended by Matthew as a word of caution to his
master, but had really the opposite effect. He resolved at the moment
that the latter should not be said of Miss Thoroughbung.

And he turned Matthew out of the room with a flea in his ear. "How dare
you speak in that way of your betters? Mr. Puffle, the lady's father,
has for many years been my friend. I am not saying anything of the lady,
nor saying that she has done right. Of course, down-stairs, in the
servants' hall, you can say what you please; but up here, in my
presence, you should not speak in such language of a lady behind whose
chair you may be called upon to wait."

"Very well, sir; I won't no more," said Matthew, retiring with mock
humility. But he had shot his bolt, and he supposed successfully. He did
not know what had taken place between his master and Miss Thoroughbung;
but he did think that his speech might assist in preventing a repetition
of the offer.

Miss Puffle gone off with the tenant's son! The news made matrimony
doubly dangerous to him, and yet robbed him of the chief reason by
which he was to have been driven to send her a letter. He could not, at
a