they washed off the accumulation of the previous day from the
steps of the front-door.

"Milk below" (certainly much below "proof") was answered by the ascent of
the busy cooks, when a knock at the door of Mrs Smith's room from the red
knuckles of the housemaid, awoke her to a sense of her equivocal situation.

At her first discovery that a man was in her bed, she uttered a scream of
horror, throwing herself upon her knees, and extending her hands before her
in her amazement. The scream awoke Nicholas, who, astonished at the sight,
and his modesty equally outraged, also threw himself in the same posture,
facing her, and recoiling. Each looked aghast at each: each considered the
other as the lawless invader; but before a word of explanation could pass
between them, their countenances changed from horror to surprise, from
surprise to anxiety and doubt.

"Why!" screamed the housekeeper, losing her breath with astonishment.

"It is!" cried Nicholas, retreating further.

"Yes--yes--it is--my _dear_ Nicholas!"

"No--it can't be," replied Nicholas, hearing the fond appellation.

"It is--oh! yes--it is your poor unhappy wife, who begs your pardon,
Nicholas," cried the housekeeper, bursting into tears, and falling into his
arms.

"My dear--dear wife!" exclaimed Nicholas, as he threw his arms around her,
and each sobbed upon the other's shoulder.

In this position they remained a minute, when Mr John Forster, who heard
the scream and subsequent exclamations, and had taken it for granted that
his brother had been guilty of some _contretemps_, first wiped the
remaining lather from his half-shaved chin, and then ascended to the
housekeeper's room, from whence the noise had proceeded. When he opened the
door, he found them in the position we have described, both kneeling in the
centre of the bed embracing and sobbing. They were so wrapt in each other,
that they did not perceive his entrance. Mr John Forster stared with
amazement for a few seconds, and thus growled out:--

"Why, what are you two old fools about?"

"It's my husband, sir,"--"It's my wife, brother John," cried they, both at
once, as the tears coursed down their cheeks.

"Humph!" ejaculated the lawyer, and he quitted the room.

We must let the reader imagine the various explanations which took place
between Nicholas and his truly reformed wife, Newton and his uncle, Amber,
and everybody in the household, while we narrate the events which had
brought about th