r, for
the supply is inexhaustible,--and so Sam lives in a seaport they call
Leghorn; and the reason I speak of it to you is that if this messenger
trade breaks down under you, or that ye 'd not like it, there's Sam
there would be ready and willing to lend you a hand; he 'd like a fellow
o' your stamp, that would go down amongst the wild places on the coast,
and care little about the wild people that live in them. Mayhap this
would be beneath you, though?" said he, after a moment's pause.

"I 'm above nothing at this moment except being dependent; I don't want
to burden my mother."

"Dolly told us about your fine relations, and the high and mighty folk
ye belong to."

"Ay, but they don't belong to me,--there 's the difference," said Tony,
laughing; then added, in a more thoughtful tone, "I never suspected that
Dolly spoke of me."

"That she did, and very often too. Indeed, I may say that she talked of
very little else. It was Tony this and Tony that; and Tony went here and
Tony went there; till one day Sam could bear it no longer--for you see
Sam was mad in love with her, and said over and over again that he never
met her equal. Sam says to me, 'Bob,' says he, 'I can't bear it any
more.' 'What is it,' says I, 'that you can't bear?'--for I thought it
was something about the drawback duty on mixed rags he was meaning. But
no, sirs; it was that he was wild wi' jealousy, and couldn't bear her to
be a-talkin' about you. 'I think,' says he, 'if I could meet that same
Tony, I 'd crack his neck for him.'"

"That was civil, certainly!" said Tony, dryly.

"'And as I can't do that, I 'll just go and ask her what she means by it
all, and if Tony's her sweetheart?'"

"He did not do that!" Tony cried, half angrily.

"Yes, but he did, though; and what for no? You would n't have a man lose
his time pricing a bale of goods when another had bought them? If she
was in treaty with you, Mr. Butler, where was the use of Sam spending
the day trying to catch a word wi' her? So, to settle the matter at
once, he overtook her one morning going to early meeting with the
children, and he had it out."

"Well, well?" asked Tony, eagerly.

"Well, she told him there never was anything like love between herself
and you; that you were aye like brother and sister; that you knew each
other from the time you could speak; that of all the wide world she did
not know any one so well as you; and then she began to cry, and cried so
bitterly that she