eper that she should have no
objections to become his bride, provided he wrote her a pretty enough,
humble sort of letter that she could show to her friends.

'For, mind you, I'd not go cheap to the like of him,' she said, raising
an admonishing finger, as she took leave of her friend: 'I'd rather
remain single, far.'

'I think he could write the letter,' replied Mrs. Sims; 'leastways, if
he can't do that, I don't know what he can do, poor man.'

Having been solemnly enjoined to be careful, Mrs. Sims thought so long
over what she was to say before she said it, that she made herself quite
nervous, and when she began, she forgot the half. Over her sewing in the
sitting-room one evening she commenced the subject with a flustered
little run of words. 'I'm sure such an amiable man as you are, sir,
almost three years I've been in this house and never had a word from
you, not one word'--it is to be remarked that the widow did not intend
to assert that the schoolmaster had been mute--'and you are nice in all
your ways, too; if I do say it, quite the gentleman.'

'Oh!' said the schoolmaster, in a tone of surprise, not because he had
heard what she said, but because he was surprised that she should begin
to talk to him when he was correcting his books.

'And not a servant to be had far or near,' she went on with agitated
volubility; 'and as for another like myself, of course that's too much
to be hoped for.' She did not say this out of conceit, but merely as
representing the actual state of affairs.

The schoolmaster began to look frightened. He was not a matter-of-fact
person, but, as long as a man is a man, the prospect of being left
altogether without his meals must be appalling.

'So, why you shouldn't get married, I don't know.' She added this in
tremulous excitement, speaking in an argumentative way, as if she had
led him by an ordered process of thought to an inevitable conclusion.

'Oh!' exclaimed the schoolmaster in surprise again, this time because he
_had_ heard what was said.

The worst was over now; and Mrs. Sims, having once suggested the
desperate idea of the necessity of marriage, could proceed more calmly.
She found, however, that she had to explain the notion at length before
he could at all grasp it, and then she was obliged to urge its necessity
for some time before he was willing to consider it. He became agitated
in his turn, and, rising, walked up and down the room, his arms folded
and an absent l