d of the boozy auld sweep. I'll soon
shaw un wheer he's out if he thinks you 'm tinkering arter him!"

"He couldn't bring an action for breach, or anything o' that, could he?"

"At his time of life! What Justice would give ear to un? An' the shame
of it!"

"Perhaps he misunderstood. You men jump so at a conclusion."

"Leave that to me. I'll clear his brains double-quick; aye, an' make un
jump for somethin'!"

"Then I suppose it's got to be. I'm yourn, Billy, an' theer needn't be
any long waitin' neither. To think of another weddin' an' another
husband! Just a drop or I shall cry. It's such a supporting thing to a
lone female."

Whether Mrs. Coomstock meant marriage or Plymouth gin, Billy did not
stop to inquire. He helped her, filled Lezzard's empty glass for
himself, and then, finding his future wife thick of speech, bleared of
eye, and evidently disposed to slumber, he departed and left her to
sleep off her varied emotions.

"I'll mighty soon change all that," thought Mr. Blee. "To note a fine
woman in liquor 's the frightfullest sight in all nature, so to say. Not
but what with Lezzard a-pawin' of her 't was enough to drive her to it."

That night the lover announced his triumph, whereon Phoebe congratulated
him and Miller Lyddon shook his head.

"'T is an awful experiment, Billy, at your age," he declared.

"Why, so 't is; but I've weighed the subject in my mind for years and
years, an 't wasn't till Mary Coomstock comed to be widowed that I
thought I'd found the woman at last. 'T was lookin' tremendous high, I
knaw, but theer 't is; she'll have me. She 'm no young giglet neither,
as would lead me a devil's dance, but a pusson in full blooth with ripe
mind."

"She drinks. I doan't want to hurt your feelings; but everybody says it
is so," declared the miller.

"What everybody sez, nobody did ought to believe," returned Mr. Blee
stoutly. "She 'm a gude, lonely sawl, as wants a man round the house to
keep off her relations, same as us has a dog to keep down varmints in
general. Theer 's the Hickses, an' Chowns, an' Coomstocks all a-stickin'
up theer tails an' a-purrin' an' a-rubbin' theerselves against the
door-posts of the plaace like cats what smells feesh. I won't have none
of it. I'll dwell along wi' she an' play a husband's part, an' comfort
the decline of her like a man, I warn 'e."

"Why, Mrs. Coomstock 's not so auld as all that, Billy," said Phoebe.
"Chris has often told me she's only sixty-two