iscomfitures.

"You may come up now, Kitty," said Mr. Gridley over the stairs. He had
just finished and sealed a letter.

"Well, Kitty, how are things going on up at The Poplars? And how does
our young lady seem to be of late?"

"Whisht! whisht! your honor."

Mr. Bradshaw's lessons had not been thrown away on his attentive
listener. She opened every door in the room, "by your lave," as
she said. She looked all over the walls to see if there was any old
stovepipe hole or other avenue to eye or ear. Then she went, in her
excess of caution, to the window. She saw nothing noteworthy except
Mr. Gifted Hopkins and the charge he convoyed, large and small, in
the distance. The whole living fleet was stationary for the moment, he
leaning on the fence with his cheek on his hand, in one of the attitudes
of the late Lord Byron; she, very near him, listening, apparently,
in the pose of Mignon aspirant au ciel, as rendered by Carlo Dolce
Scheffer.

Kitty came back, apparently satisfied, and stood close to Mr. Gridley,
who told her to sit down, which she did, first making a catch at her
apron to dust the chair with, and then remembering that she had left
that part of her costume at home.--Automatic movements, curious.

Mistress Kitty began telling in an undertone of the meeting between Mr.
Bradshaw and Miss Badlam, and of the arrangements she made for herself
as the reporter of the occasion. She then repeated to him, in her own
way, that part of the conversation which has been already laid before
the reader. There is no need of going over the whole of this again in
Kitty's version, but we may fit what followed into the joints of what
has been already told.

"He cahled her Cynthy, d' ye see, Mr. Gridley, an' tahked to her jist as
asy as if they was two rogues, and she knowed it as well as he did. An'
so, says he, I'm goin' away, says he, an' I'm goin' to be gahn siveral
days, or perhaps longer, says he, an' you'd better kape it, says he."

"Keep what, Kitty? What was it he wanted her to keep?" said Mr. Gridley,
who no longer doubted that he was on the trail of a plot, and meant
to follow it. He was getting impatient with the "says he's" with which
Kitty double-leaded her discourse.

"An' to be sure ain't I tellin' you, Mr. Gridley, jist as fast as my
breath will let me? An' so, says he, you'd better kape it, says he,
mixed up with your other paupers, says he," (Mr. Gridley started,) "an'
thin we can find it in the garret, sa