ws but what it may be a petition from some
poor person or other who is in distress? I ought to read it, at all
events."

Had it proved to be a petition, Miss Melissa would have been terribly
disappointed. "It certainly is very respectful," thought Melissa, after
she had read it, "but I cannot reply to it; that would never do. There
certainly is nothing I can take offence at. It must be the tinker
himself, I am sure of that: but still he does not say so. Well, I don't
know, but I feel very anxious as to what this will come to. O, it can
come to nothing, for I cannot love a man I have never seen, and I would
not admit a stranger to an interview; that's quite decided. I must show
the letter to Araminta. Shall I? I don't know, she's so particular, so
steady, and would be talking of propriety and prudence; it would vex her
so, and put her quite in a fever, she would be so unhappy; no, it would
be cruel to say anything to her, she would fret so about it; I won't
tell her, until I think it absolutely necessary. It is a very
gentleman-like hand, and elegant language too; but still I'm not going
to carry on a secret correspondence with a tinker. It must be the
tinker. What an odd thing altogether! What can his name be? An old
family quarrel, too. Why, it's a Romeo and Juliet affair, only Romeo's
a tinker. Well, one mask is as good as another. He acknowledges
himself poor, I like that of him, there's something so honest in it.
Well, after all, it will be a little amusement to a poor girl like me,
shut up from year's end to year's end, with opodeldocs always in my
nose; so I will see what the end of it may be," thought Melissa, rising
from her seat to go into the house, and putting the letter into her
pocket.

Joey went back to Spikeman and reported progress.

"That's all I wish, Joey," said Spikeman; "now you must not go there
to-morrow; we must let it work a little; if she is at all interested in
the letter, she will be impatient to know more."

Spikeman was right. Melissa looked up and down the road very often
during the next day, and was rather silent during the evening. The
second day after, Joey, having received his instructions, set off, with
his knife-grinder's wheel, for the mansion-house. When he went round
the copse where the bench was, he found Miss Mathews there.

"I beg your pardon, miss, but do you think there is any work at the
house?"

"Come here, sir," said Melissa, assuming a very dign