, and is
a grand lady there. Oh, how I wish I might go and be her servant, Ma!
I can do plenty of things, and work very neat; and--and sometimes he'd
come home, and I should see him!"

The girl's head fell on her mother's shoulder, as she spoke, and she
gave way to a plentiful outpouring of girlish tears, to which the
matron, of course, joined her own. "You mustn't think no more of him,
Fanny," she said. "If he don't come to you, he's a horrid, wicked man."

"Don't call him so, Mother," Fanny replied. "He's the best of men, the
best and the kindest. Bows says he thinks he is unhappy at leaving poor
little Fanny. It wasn't his fault, was it, that we met?--and it ain't
his that I mustn't see him again. He says I mustn't--and I mustn't,
Mother. He'll forget me, but I shall never forget him. No! I'll pray
for him, and love him always--until I die--and I shall die, I know I
shall--and then my spirit will always go and be with him."

"You forget your poor mother, Fanny, and you'll break my heart by goin
on so," Mrs. Bolton said. "Perhaps you will see him. I'm sure you'll see
him. I'm sure he'll come to-day. If ever I saw a man in love, that man
is him. When Emily Budd's young man first came about her, he was
sent away by old Budd, a most respectable man, and violoncello in the
orchestra at the Wells; and his own family wouldn't hear of it neither.
But he came back. We all knew he would. Emily always said so; and he
married her; and this one will come back too; and you mark a mother's
words, and see if he don't, dear."

At this point of the conversation Mr. Bolton entered the lodge for his
evening meal. At the father's appearance, the talk between mother and
daughter ceased instantly. Mrs. Bolton caressed and cajoled the surly
undertaker's aide-de-camp, and said, "Lor, Mr. B. who'd have thought to
see you away from the Club of a Saturday night. Fanny, dear, get your pa
some supper. What will you have, B.? The poor gurl's got a gathering
in her eye, or somethink in it--I was lookin at it just now as you came
in." And she squeezed her daughter's hand as a signal of prudence and
secrecy; and Fanny's tears were dried up likewise; and by that wondrous
hypocrisy and power of disguise which women practise, and with which
weapons of defence nature endows them, the traces of her emotion
disappeared; and she went and took her work, and sate in the corner so
demure and quiet, that the careless male parent never suspected that
anythin