her when we were boys at school
together, and, even then, she was wayward and slighted your young
feelings. Do you recollect, with all the eagerness of a child's love,
one day pressing upon her acceptance, two small caraway-seed biscuits
and one sweet apple, neatly folded into a circular parcel with the leaf
of a copy-book?'

'I do,' replied Bob Sawyer.

'She slighted that, I think?' said Ben Allen.

'She did,' rejoined Bob. 'She said I had kept the parcel so long in the
pockets of my corduroys, that the apple was unpleasantly warm.'

'I remember,' said Mr. Allen gloomily. 'Upon which we ate it ourselves,
in alternate bites.'

Bob Sawyer intimated his recollection of the circumstance last alluded
to, by a melancholy frown; and the two friends remained for some time
absorbed, each in his own meditations.

While these observations were being exchanged between Mr. Bob Sawyer and
Mr. Benjamin Allen; and while the boy in the gray livery, marvelling at
the unwonted prolongation of the dinner, cast an anxious look, from
time to time, towards the glass door, distracted by inward misgivings
regarding the amount of minced veal which would be ultimately reserved
for his individual cravings; there rolled soberly on through the streets
of Bristol, a private fly, painted of a sad green colour, drawn by a
chubby sort of brown horse, and driven by a surly-looking man with his
legs dressed like the legs of a groom, and his body attired in the coat
of a coachman. Such appearances are common to many vehicles belonging
to, and maintained by, old ladies of economic habits; and in this
vehicle sat an old lady who was its mistress and proprietor.

'Martin!' said the old lady, calling to the surly man, out of the front
window.

'Well?' said the surly man, touching his hat to the old lady.

'Mr. Sawyer's,' said the old lady.

'I was going there,' said the surly man.

The old lady nodded the satisfaction which this proof of the surly man's
foresight imparted to her feelings; and the surly man giving a smart
lash to the chubby horse, they all repaired to Mr. Bob Sawyer's
together.

'Martin!' said the old lady, when the fly stopped at the door of Mr.
Robert Sawyer, late Nockemorf.

'Well?' said Martin.

'Ask the lad to step out, and mind the horse.'

'I'm going to mind the horse myself,' said Martin, laying his whip on
the roof of the fly.

'I can't permit it, on any account,' said the old lady; 'your testimony
will be very