ly man in the parish who can make
him hear) to ask what it was about. So upon my explaining the matter,
Jacob found he had got into the wrong box. But as the chap had taken
away his petition, and Jacob could not scratch out his name, what does
he do but set his mark to ours o' t'other side; and we've wrote all
about it to Sir Robert to explain to the Parliament, lest seeing Jacob's
name both ways like, they should think 'twas he, poor fellow, that meant
to humbug 'em. A pretty figure Mr. 'Dolphus 'll cut when the story comes
to be told in the House of Commons! But that's not the worst. He took
the petition to the workhouse, and meeting with little Fan Ropley, who
had been taught to write at our charity-school, and is quick at her pen,
he makes her sign her name at full length, and then strikes a dot over
the _e_ to turn it into Francis, and persuade the great folk up at
Lunnun, that little Fan's a grown-up man. If that chap won't come
someday to be transported for forgery, my name's not John Stokes! Well,
dame, will you let Ned have the money? Yes or no?"

That Mrs. Deborah should have suffered the good miller to proceed with
his harangue without interruption, can only be accounted for on the
score of the loudness of tone on which he piqued himself with so much
justice. When she did take up the word, her reply made up in volubility
and virulence for any deficiency in sound, concluding by a formal
renunciation of her nephew, and a command to his zealous advocate never
again to appear within her doors. Upon which, honest John vowed he never
would, and departed.

Two or three days after this quarrel, Mr. Adolphus having arrived,
as happened not un-frequently, to spend the afternoon at Chalcott,
persuaded his hostess to accompany him to see a pond drawn at the Hall,
to which, as the daughter of one of Sir Robert's old tenants, she would
undoubtedly have the right of _entree_; and Mrs. Deborah assented to his
request, partly because the weather was fine, and the distance short,
partly, it may be, from a lurking desire to take her chance as a
bystander of a dish of fish; they who need such windfalls least, being
commonly those who are most desirous to put themselves in their way.

Mr. Adolphus Lynfield's reasons were obvious enough. Besides the _ennui_
of a tete-a-tete, all flattery on one side and contradiction on the
other, he was naturally of the fidgetty restless temperament which hates
to be long confined to one place