lease the pigs she shall have it!" And Miss Wozenham and
me we go into the front room with a wretched light that seemed to have
been crying too and was sputtering out, and I says "Now my dear, tell me
all," and she wrings her hands and says "O Mrs. Lirriper that man is in
possession here, and I have not a friend in the world who is able to help
me with a shilling."

It doesn't signify a bit what a talkative old body like me said to Miss
Wozenham when she said that, and so I'll tell you instead my dear that
I'd have given thirty shillings to have taken her over to tea, only I
durstn't on account of the Major. Not you see but what I knew I could
draw the Major out like thread and wind him round my finger on most
subjects and perhaps even on that if I was to set myself to it, but him
and me had so often belied Miss Wozenham to one another that I was
shamefaced, and I knew she had offended his pride and never mine, and
likewise I felt timid that that Rairyganoo girl might make things
awkward. So I says "My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear
my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs." And we had
the tea and the affairs too and after all it was but forty pound,
and--There! she's as industrious and straight a creeter as ever lived and
has paid back half of it already, and where's the use of saying more,
particularly when it ain't the point? For the point is that when she was
a kissing my hands and holding them in hers and kissing them again and
blessing blessing blessing, I cheered up at last and I says "Why what a
waddling old goose I have been my dear to take you for something so very
different!" "Ah but I too" says she "how have _I_ mistaken _you_!" "Come
for goodness' sake tell me" I says "what you thought of me?" "O" says
she "I thought you had no feeling for such a hard hand-to-mouth life as
mine, and were rolling in affluence." I says shaking my sides (and very
glad to do it for I had been a choking quite long enough) "Only look at
my figure my dear and give me your opinion whether if I was in affluence
I should be likely to roll in it?" That did it? We got as merry as
grigs (whatever _they_ are, if you happen to know my dear--_I_ don't) and
I went home to my blessed home as happy and as thankful as could be. But
before I make an end of it, think even of my having misunderstood the
Major! Yes! For next forenoon the Major came into my little room with
his brushed hat in his han