ill kill me!" she moans. "Of all the dreadful news I ever
heard! And wi' Lawyer Vetch, too; the man as devours widows' houses
and makes away with good men's wills! I wish I were in my grave, I
do!"

"Wouldn't you rather be with me, Becky?" I said, smiling at her.

"'Tis cruel to talk so," she cried, sobbing. "How can I be with
'ee? What you get from Lawyer Vetch won't keep two--if you get
anything at all. They say his nephew has ruined him--the wretch!
Indeed, if you ask me, I say you'll get more from Mr. Huggins than
from the lawyer. You'll have enough to do to keep yourself, without
being saddled with a poor, forlorn old widow woman."

"But won't you come? I am going to live with Mr. Vetch."

"Live with the devil!" she screamed, lifting her hands with a
gesture of utter despair. "It is downright wicked of you,
Humphrey--and your poor father not a week in the grave. Sure the
end of the world be coming, when the leopard and the kid shall lie
down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox."

"And donkeys won't bray, I suppose," says I. "There, I don't mean
you, Becky, though you are an old goose. Mr. Vetch wants a
housekeeper, and you are to come with me and mother us both, he
says, and he'll give you twenty pounds a year."

The good creature's look sent me into a fit of laughter. She stared
solemnly at me for a while through her tears, saying never a word.
Then the drooping corners of her mouth lifted; she folded her hands
across her plump person and said:

"Your father only gave me eighteen, Humphrey: are you sure 'twas
twenty the lawyer said?"

"Quite sure. The devil isn't as black as he's painted, eh Becky?"

"Ah! you never know a man till yon've lived with him. Pennyquick
was--but there, he's gone, poor soul, as we all must, and tis ill
work saying anything against one as can't answer ye back: not that
Pennyquick was ever much of a hand at that, poor soul!"

I heard no more vilification of Mr. Vetch. Becky recovered her old
activity with surprising ease, and went about the house collecting
such personal belongings of her own and mine as the lawyer told us
we might remove without question. He himself came to the house on
our last day, and made an inventory of the articles we removed, and
having seen these safely bestowed in a pannier on the back of Ben
Ivimey's son, who came to carry them away, we shut the doors of the
old place, Mr. Vetch pocketed the keys, and we set off for the
town.

Mistr