ter his
inn'cence! helping blindfold an old woman! though I ain't sorry for what
I did--that I'm free for to say, and its' over, and blessed be all! Amen!
So now where is she and how is she, Mr. Richard, my dear--it's only
cuttin' off the 's' and you are as you was.--Why didn't ye bring her with
ye to see her old Berry?"

Richard hurriedly explained that Lucy was still in the Isle of Wight.

"Oh! and you've left her for a day or two?" said Mrs. Berry.

"Good God! I wish it had been a day or two," cried Richard.

"Ah! and how long have it been?" asked Mrs. Berry, her heart beginning to
beat at his manner of speaking.

"Don't talk about it," said Richard.

"Oh! you never been dudgeonin' already? Oh! you haven't been peckin' at
one another yet?" Mrs. Berry exclaimed.

Ripton interposed to tell her such fears were unfounded.

"Then how long ha' you been divided?"

In a guilty voice Ripton stammered "since September."

"September!" breathed Mrs. Berry, counting on her fingers, "September,
October, Nov--two months and more! nigh three! A young married husband
away from the wife of his bosom nigh three months! Oh my! Oh my! what do
that mean?"

"My father sent for me--I'm waiting to see him," said Richard. A few more
words helped Mrs. Berry to comprehend the condition of affairs. Then Mrs.
Berry spread her lap, flattened out her hands, fixed her eyes, and spoke.

"My dear young gentleman!--I'd like to call ye my darlin' babe! I'm going
to speak as a mother to ye, whether ye likes it or no; and what old Berry
says, you won't mind, for she's had ye when there was no conventionals
about ye, and she has the feelin's of a mother to you, though humble her
state. If there's one that know matrimony it's me, my dear, though Berry
did give me no more but nine months of it and I've known the worst of
matrimony, which, if you wants to be woeful wise, there it is for ye. For
what have been my gain? That man gave me nothin' but his name; and Bessy
Andrews was as good as Bessy Berry, though both is 'Bs,' and says he, you
was 'A,' and now you's 'B,' so you're my A B, he says, write yourself
down that, he says, the bad man, with his jokes!--Berry went to service."
Mrs. Berry's softness came upon her. "So I tell ye, Berry went to
service. He left the wife of his bosom forlorn and he went to service;
because he were allays an ambitious man, and wasn't, so to speak, happy
out of his uniform--which was his livery--not even in my arms: