nneby. "I don't suppose they can make
me tell falsehoods if I don't wish it."

"Not if you're the man I take you to be," said Mrs. Smiley.

"Gammon!" said Moulder.

"Mr. Moulder, that's an objectionable word," said Mrs. Smiley. "If
John Kenneby is the man I take him to be,--and who's a right to speak
if I haven't, seeing that I am going to commit myself for this world
into his hands?"--and Mrs. Smiley, as she spoke, simpered, and looked
down with averted head on the fulness of her Irish tabinet--"if
he's the man that I take him to be, he won't say on this thrilling
occasion no more than the truth, nor yet no less. Now that isn't
gammon--if I know what gammon is."

It will have been already seen that the party in question were
assembled at Mr. Moulder's room in Great St. Helen's. There had been
a little supper party there to commemorate the final arrangements
as to the coming marriage, and the four were now sitting round the
fire with their glasses of hot toddy at their elbows. Moulder was
armed with his pipe, and was enjoying himself in that manner which
most delighted him. When last we saw him he had somewhat exceeded
discretion in his cups, and was not comfortable. But at the present
nothing ailed him. The supper had been good, the tobacco was good,
and the toddy was good. Therefore when the lovely Thais sitting
beside him,--Thais however on this occasion having been provided not
for himself but for his brother-in-law,--when Thais objected to the
use of his favourite word, he merely chuckled down in the bottom of
his fat throat, and allowed her to finish her sentence.

Poor John Kenneby had more--much more, on his hands than this
dreadful trial. Since he had declared that the Adriatic was free
to wed another, he had found himself devoted and given up to Mrs.
Smiley. For some days after that auspicious evening there had been
considerable wrangling between Mrs. Moulder and Mrs. Smiley as to the
proceeds of the brick-field; and on this question Moulder himself
had taken a part. The Moulder interest had of course desired that
all right of management in the brick-field should be vested in
the husband, seeing that, according to the usages of this country,
brick-fields and their belongings appertain rather to men than to
women; but Mrs. Smiley had soon made it evident that she by no means
intended to be merely a sleeping partner in the firm. At one time
Kenneby had entertained a hope of escape; for neither would the
M