e would say, pointing to her with the stem of his pipe. If she was
away, she had sailed on such a day;--he expected her back at such a
time. It was a fair wind--it was a foul wind for his sloop. All his
ideas were engrossed by this one darling object, and it was no easy task
to divert him from it.

I ought to have mentioned that Mr Dragwell, the curate, was invariably
accompanied by Mr Spinney, the clerk of the parish, a little spare man,
with a few white hairs straggling on each side of a bald pate. He always
took his tune, whether in or out of church, from his superior, ejecting
a small treble "He, he, he!" in response to the loud Ha, ha, ha! of the
curate.

"Peace be unto this house!" observed the curate as he crossed the
threshold, for Mrs Forster's character was notorious; then laughing at
his own wit with a Ha, ha, ha!

"He, he, he!"

"Good morning, Mr Forster, how is your good lady?"

"She's safe moored at last," interrupted Mr Hilton.

"Who?" demanded the curate, with surprise.

"Why the sloop, to be sure."

"Oh! I thought you meant the lady--Ha, ha, ha!"

"He, he, he!"

"Won't you sit down, gentlemen?" said Nicholas, showing the way from the
shop into the parlour, where they found Mrs Forster, who had just come
in from the back premises.

"Hope you're well, Mr Curate," sharply observed the lady, who could not
be persuaded, even from respect for the cloth, to be commonly
civil--"take a chair; it's all covered with dust; but that Betsy is such
an idle slut!"

"Newton handles her as well as any man going," observed Hilton.

"Newton!" screamed the lady, turning to her son, with an angry inquiring
look--"Newton handles Betsy!" continued she, turning round to Hilton.

"Betsy! no; the sloop I meant, ma'am."

Newton burst out into a laugh, in which he was joined by Hilton and his
father.

"Sad business--sad indeed!" said Hilton, after the merriment had
subsided, "such an awful death!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" roared the curate, who had but just then taken the joke
about Betsy.

"He, he, he!"

"Nothing to laugh at, that I can see," observed Mrs Forster, snappishly.

"Capital joke, ma'am, I assure you!" rejoined the curate. "But, Mr
Forster, we had better proceed to business. Spinney, where are the
papers?" The clerk produced an inventory of the effects of the late Mr
Thompson, and laid them on the table.--"Melancholy thing, this, ma'am,"
continued the curate, "very melancholy indeed! But we must all die