We was seated at ye time in ye blue parlour, the table being spread for supper, and were awaiting our friend from the village, a man of humble station, being but a poor chapman and huckster, but of exalted mind and a most holy temper, and sells me the same growth of Bohea as that drunk by our gracious queen at Windsor.
After I had thus reproved him--in no unkind speritt--" Mr.Haygarthe fell to sighing; and then cries out all at once: "'When I am on my death-bed, wife, I will tell thee something: be sure thou askest me for it; or if death come upon me unawares, thou wouldst do well to search in the old tulip-leaf bureau for a letter, since I may tell thee that in a letter which I would not tell with these lips.' "Before there was time to answer him in comes Mr.Bagot, and we to supper; after which he did read the sixth chapter of Hebrews and expound it at much length for our edifying; at the end whereof Satan had obtained fast hold of Mr.Haygarthe, who was fallen asleep and snoring heavily." Here is plain allusion to some secret, which that pragmatical idiot, Mrs.Rebecca, studiously endeavoured not to hear.

The next extract is from a letter written when the lips that had been fain to speak were stilled for ever.

Ah, Mistress Rebecca, you were but mortal woman, although you were also a shining light amongst the followers of John Wesley; and I wonder what you would have given for poor Matthew's secret _then_.
"Some days being gone after this melancholic event, I bethought me of that which my husband had said to me before I left Dewsdale for that excursion to the love-feasts at Kemberton and Kesfield, Broppindean and Dawnfold, from which I returned but two short weeks before my poor Matthew's demise.

I called to remembrance that discourse about approaching death which in my poor human judgment I did esteem a pestilent error of mind, but which I do now recognise as a spiritual premonition; and I set myself earnestly to look for that letter which Matthew told me he would leave in the tulip-leaf bureau.

But though I did search with great care and pains, my trouble was wasted, inasmuch as there was no letter.