Don't ye agree with me, Mrs.Melcombe ?" Mrs.Melcombe looked up and smiled uneasily; but the gardener had no uncomfortable surmises respecting her, as she had respecting him, and when he caught her eye he straightened himself up, and said with pleasant civility, while putting on his hat on purpose to touch it and take it off again, "'Servant, ma'am; my son Joseph has had a fine spell of work, as I hear from him, at your place since I saw you last autumn, and a beautiful place it is, I'm told." Mrs.Melcombe answered this civil speech, and John Mortimer said, "How is Joseph getting, on, Swan ?" "Getting on first-rate, thank you kindly, sir," replied Swan, leaning down into his former easy attitude, and keeping his Sunday hat under his arm.
"That boy, though I say it, allers was as steady as old Time.

He's at Birmingham now.

I rather expect he'll be wanting to _settle_ shortly." As he evidently wished to be asked a further question, Mrs.Henfrey did ask one.
"No, ma'am, no," was the reply; "he have not told me nor his mother the young woman's name; but he said if he got her he should be the luckiest fellow that ever was." Here, from intense confusion and shyness, Laura dropped the book, St.George picked it up for her, and nobody thought of connecting the fall with the story, the unconscious Nicholas continuing.
"So thereby his mother judged that it would come to something, for that's what a young chap mostly says when he has made up his mind; but I shall allers say, sir," he went on, "that with the good education as I gave him, it's a pity he took to such a poor trade.

He airly showed a bent for it; I reckon it was the putty that got the better of him." "Ah," said John Mortimer, "and I only wonder, Swan, that it didn't get the better of me! I used to lay out a good deal of pocket-money in it at one time, and many a private smash have I perpetrated in the panes of out-houses, and at the back of the conservatory, that I might afterwards mend them with my own putty and tools.

I can remember my father's look of pride and pleasure when he would pass and find me so quietly, and, as he thought, so meritoriously employed." And now this ordeal was over.