You won't let it go any further, Ebenezer, but the truth is he began to take a sort of fancy to Minnie, and he told me about it, just as he ought to a'done, and I had to tell him plain that it wasn't a bit of use.

For one thing Minnie was too young, and what's more, she hadn't even given half a thought to him in _that_ way; and I wouldn't have the child worried about such things, because, as you know, she's delicate, and it doesn't take much to upset her in her mind, and then she can't sleep at nights.
So I told Mr.Gammon plain and straight, and he took it in the right spirit, but he hasn't been here since.

And I'm as sure as anything that Polly's letter is a nasty, mean bit of falsehood, though I'm sorry to have to say it to you, Ebenezer." Mr.Sparkes had the beginning of a cold in the head, which did not tend to make him cheerful.

Sitting by the fireside, very upright in his decent suit of Sunday black, he looked more than ever like a clergyman, perchance a curate who is growing old without hope of a benefice.
Fortunately there entered about tea-time a young man in much better spirits, evidently a welcome friend of Mrs.Clover's; his name was Nelson.

On his arrival Minnie joined the company, and it would have been remarked by anyone with an interest in the affairs of the family that Mrs.Clover was not at all reluctant to see her daughter and this young man amiably conversing.