this to live at,
and what sort of a mis'ess is she to work under?" Gabriel's bosom
thrilled gently as he thus slipped under the notice of the assembly
the inner-most subject of his heart.

"We d' know little of her--nothing. She only showed herself a few
days ago. Her uncle was took bad, and the doctor was called with his
world-wide skill; but he couldn't save the man. As I take it, she's
going to keep on the farm.

"That's about the shape o't, 'a b'lieve," said Jan Coggan. "Ay, 'tis
a very good family. I'd as soon be under 'em as under one here and
there. Her uncle was a very fair sort of man. Did ye know en,
shepherd--a bachelor-man?"

"Not at all."

"I used to go to his house a-courting my first wife, Charlotte,
who was his dairymaid. Well, a very good-hearted man were Farmer
Everdene, and I being a respectable young fellow was allowed to call
and see her and drink as much ale as I liked, but not to carry away
any--outside my skin I mane of course."

"Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer maning."

"And so you see 'twas beautiful ale, and I wished to value his
kindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-mannered as to
drink only a thimbleful, which would have been insulting the man's
generosity--"

"True, Master Coggan, 'twould so," corroborated Mark Clark.

"--And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore going, and then by
the time I got there I were as dry as a lime-basket--so thorough dry
that that ale would slip down--ah, 'twould slip down sweet! Happy
times! Heavenly times! Such lovely drunks as I used to have at that
house! You can mind, Jacob? You used to go wi' me sometimes."

"I can--I can," said Jacob. "That one, too, that we had at Buck's
Head on a White Monday was a pretty tipple."

"'Twas. But for a wet of the better class, that brought you no
nearer to the horned man than you were afore you begun, there was
none like those in Farmer Everdene's kitchen. Not a single damn
allowed; no, not a bare poor one, even at the most cheerful moment
when all were blindest, though the good old word of sin thrown in
here and there at such times is a great relief to a merry soul."

"True," said the maltster. "Nater requires her swearing at the
regular times, or she's not herself; and unholy exclamations is a
necessity of life."

"But Charlotte," continued Coggan--"not a word of the sort would
Charlotte allow, nor the smallest item of taking in vain.... Ay,
poor Charlotte, I wonder if