pretty thing, from
another."

"Ah!" sighed the bachelor, "I see there's nobody in this world cares for
poor Jack Hardingham, but Martha Honeydew;" and he felt sorry that his
housekeeper had departed ere his lips had emitted this grateful praise.
Yes, Mr. Hardingham felt vexed he scarcely knew why; and uncommonly
discontented he knew not wherefore; but had he troubled himself to
analyze such feelings, he would have discerned their origin to be
solitude and idleness. Mrs. Honeydew brought tea; she had buttered a
couple of muffins superlatively well; and making her master's fire burn
exceedingly bright, placed them on the cat before it, and a kettle,
which immediately commenced a delicate bravura, upon the glowing coals;
then, modestly waiting at the distance of a few paces from her master
until the water quite boiled, she fixed her brilliant eyes upon his
countenance with an expression _intended_ to be _piteous_.

"Mrs. Honeydew--Martha," said Hardingham in a low querulous tone, "I
fancy I'm going to have a fit of the gout, or a bilious fever."

"_Fancy_, indeed, sir; why, I never saw you looking haler."

"Ay, Ay, so much the worse; a fit of apoplexy then maybe."

"Lauk, lauk! sir; a fit of the blue devils more likely. How can you talk
so? A fit of _perplexity_! Dear, dear! how some men do go on to be
sure;" pouring the steaming water upon the tea.

"You are a kind comforter, Martha; nobody ever raises my spirits like
you. Get me my little leathern trunk."

"Why, then, that I won't;" getting it down from a closet-shelf as she
spoke. "I wish it was burnt with all my heart, that I do; making you so
_lammancholy_ as it always _do_."

And well might this trunk make Mr. Hardingham melancholy, for it was the
receptacle of letters and little gifts of a lady who had jilted him in
early life; and upon whom he had often vowed vengeance. She was yet
unmarried; but--no--her once devoted admirer was resolved to follow the
lady's advice, and place his "affections upon a worthier object than
Caroline Dalton;" and, thought he to himself, she shall at last see that
I have _found one_; nor shall wild Tom, my graceless nephew, who lives
upon my fortune, ever more touch one penny of it. The postman rapped,
and in a few minutes his housekeeper appeared with many apologies for
bringing to him her own newspaper, but perhaps in it he might be able to
find the names of some of the new novels that he wished to have.

"Martha Honeydew," c