gers that made him shrink into half his natural compass in the
corner. 'Not another word with him shall pass my lips. He's an
ungrateful hound. I cast him off. Now let him go! And I'll slip those
after him that shall talk too much; that won't be shook away; that'll
hang to him like leeches, and slink arter him like foxes. What! He knows
'em. He knows his old games and his old ways. If he's forgotten 'em,
they'll soon remind him. Now let him go, and see how he'll do Master's
business, and keep Master's secrets, with such company always following
him up and down. Ha, ha, ha! He'll find 'em a different sort from you
and me, Ally; Close as he is with you and me. Now let him go, now let
him go!'

The old woman, to the unspeakable dismay of the Grinder, walked her
twisted figure round and round, in a ring of some four feet in diameter,
constantly repeating these words, and shaking her fist above her head,
and working her mouth about.

'Misses Brown,' pleaded Rob, coming a little out of his corner, 'I'm
sure you wouldn't injure a cove, on second thoughts, and in cold blood,
would you?'

'Don't talk to me,' said Mrs Brown, still wrathfully pursuing her
circle. 'Now let him go, now let him go!'

'Misses Brown,' urged the tormented Grinder, 'I didn't mean to--Oh, what
a thing it is for a cove to get into such a line as this!--I was only
careful of talking, Misses Brown, because I always am, on account of his
being up to everything; but I might have known it wouldn't have gone any
further. I'm sure I'm quite agreeable,' with a wretched face, 'for
any little bit of gossip, Misses Brown. Don't go on like this, if
you please. Oh, couldn't you have the goodness to put in a word for a
miserable cove, here?' said the Grinder, appealing in desperation to the
daughter.

'Come, mother, you hear what he says,' she interposed, in her stern
voice, and with an impatient action of her head; 'try him once more,
and if you fall out with him again, ruin him, if you like, and have done
with him.'

Mrs Brown, moved as it seemed by this very tender exhortation, presently
began to howl; and softening by degrees, took the apologetic Grinder to
her arms, who embraced her with a face of unutterable woe, and like
a victim as he was, resumed his former seat, close by the side of
his venerable friend, whom he suffered, not without much constrained
sweetness of countenance, combating very expressive physiognomical
revelations of an opposite character