k, and the bolt spoilt, was ajar after Mrs. Jane, and, as I was
busy with the window, I heard all that was saying within.

'Well, what's in your letter, Bella, my dear?' says he: 'you're a long
time spelling it over.'

'Won't you shave this morning, Sir Condy?' says she, and put the letter
into her pocket.

'I shaved the day before yesterday,' said he, 'my dear, and that's not
what I'm thinking of now; but anything to oblige you, and to have peace
and quietness, my dear'--and presently I had a glimpse of him at the
cracked glass over the chimney-piece, standing up shaving himself to
please my lady. But she took no notice, but went on reading her book,
and Mrs. Jane doing her hair behind.

'What is it you're reading there, my dear?--phoo, I've cut myself with
this razor; the man's a cheat that sold it me, but I have not paid him
for it yet. What is it you're reading there? Did you hear me asking you,
my dear?'

'THE SORROWS OF WERTHER,' replies my lady, as well as I could hear.

'I think more of the sorrows of Sir Condy,' says my master, joking like.
'What news from Mount Juliet's Town?'

'No news,' says she, 'but the old story over again; my friends all
reproaching me still for what I can't help now.'

'Is it for marrying me?' said my master, still shaving. 'What signifies,
as you say, talking of that, when it can't be help'd now?'

With that she heaved a great sigh that I heard plain enough in the
passage.

'And did not you use me basely, Sir Condy,' says she, 'not to tell me
you were ruined before I married you?'

'Tell you, my dear!' said he. 'Did you ever ask me one word about it.
And had not your friends enough of your own, that were telling you
nothing else from morning to night, if you'd have listened to them
slanders?'

'No slanders, nor are my friends slanderers; and I can't bear to hear
them treated with disrespect as I do,' says my lady, and took out her
pocket-handkerchief; 'they are the best of friends, and if I had taken
their advice--But my father was wrong to lock me up, I own. That was the
only unkind thing I can charge him with; for if he had not locked me up,
I should never have had a serious thought of running away as I did.'

'Well, my dear,' said my master, 'don't cry and make yourself uneasy
about it now, when it's all over, and you have the man of your own
choice, in spite of 'em all.'

'I was too young, I know, to make a choice at the time you ran away with
me, I'm sure,' says