The Cricket on the Hearth.................................................................................................................................1

Charles Dickens.......................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I Chirp the First.................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER II Chirp The Second........................................................................................................16

CHAPTER III Chirp the Third...........................................................................................................34

THE kettle began it! Don't tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle said. I know better. Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it

on record to the end of time that she couldn't say which of them began it; but, I say the kettle did. I ought to

know, I hope! The kettle began it, full five minutes by the little waxyfaced Dutch clock in the corner, before

As if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the convulsive little Haymaker at the top of it, jerking away right

and left with a scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn't mowed down half an acre of imaginary grass

Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that. I wouldn't set my own opinion against the opinion of

Mrs. Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account whatever. Nothing should induce me. But, this is a

question of act. And the fact is, that the kettle began it, at least five minutes before the Cricket gave any sign

Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should have proceeded to do so in my very first word, but for this

plain consideration if I am to tell a story I must begin at the beginning; and how is it possible to begin at the

It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill, you must understand, between the kettle and the

Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that

worked innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the yard Mrs.

Peerybingle filled the kettle at the waterbutt. Presently returning, less the pattens (and a good deal less, for

they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short), she set the kettle on the fire. In doing which she lost her

temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for, the water being uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety

sort of state wherein it seems to penetrate through every kind of substance, patten rings included had laid

hold of Mrs. Peerybingle's toes, and even splashed her legs. And when we rather plume ourselves (with

reason too) upon our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of stockings, we find this, for the

Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it

wouldn't hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it WOULD lean forward with a drunken

air, and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered morosely

at the fire. To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsyturvy, and then,

with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in down to the very bottom of the

kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the

water, which the lid of that kettle employed against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again.

It looked sullen and pigheaded enough, even then; carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking

its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, 'I won't boil. Nothing shall induce me!'

But Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humour, dusted her chubby little hands against each other, and sat

down before the kettle, laughing. Meantime, the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and gleaming on the

little Haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock, until one might have thought he stood stock still before the

He was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second, all right and regular. But, his

sufferings when the clock was going to strike, were frightful to behold; and, when a Cuckoo looked out of a

trapdoor in the Palace, and gave note six times, it shook him, each time, like a spectral voice or like a

It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise among the weights and ropes below him had quite

subsided, that this terrified Haymaker became himself again. Nor was he startled without reason; for these

rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting in their operation, and I wonder very much how any

set of men, but most of all how Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them. There is a popular belief that

Dutchmen love broad cases and much clothing for their own lower selves; and they might know better than to

Now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to spend the evening. Now it was, that the kettle, growing

mellow and musical, began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to indulge in short vocal snorts,

which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't quite made up its mind yet, to be good company. Now it was, that

after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve,

and burst into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious, as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the least idea

So plain too! Bless you, you might have understood it like a book better than some books you and I could

name, perhaps. With its warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud which merrily and gracefully ascended a

few feet, then hung about the chimneycorner as its own domestic Heaven, it trolled its song with that strong

energy of cheerfulness, that its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire; and the lid itself, the recently

rebellious lid such is the influence of a bright example performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf

That this song of the kettle's was a song of invitation and welcome to somebody out of doors: to somebody at

that moment coming on, towards the snug small home and the crisp fire: there is no doubt whatever. Mrs.

Peerybingle knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing before the hearth. It's a dark night, sang the kettle, and the

rotten leaves are lying by the way; and, above, all is mist and darkness, and, below, all is mire and clay; and

there's only one relief in all the sad and murky air; and I don't know that it is one, for it's nothing but a glare;

of deep and angry crimson, where the sun and wind together; set a brand upon the clouds for being guilty of

such weather; and the widest open country is a long dull streak of black; and there's hoarfrost on the

fingerpost, and thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn't water, and the water isn't free; and you couldn't say

And here, if you like, the Cricket DID chime in! with a Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way

of chorus; with a voice so astoundingly disproportionate to its size, as compared with the kettle; (size! you

couldn't see it!) that if it had then and there burst itself like an overcharged gun, if it had fallen a victim on the

spot, and chirruped its little body into fifty pieces, it would have seemed a natural and inevitable

The kettle had had the last of its solo performance. It persevered with undiminished ardour; but the Cricket

took first fiddle and kept it. Good Heaven, how it chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through

the house, and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a star. There was an indescribable little trill and

tremble in it, at its loudest, which suggested its being carried off its legs, and made to leap again, by its own

intense enthusiasm. Yet they went very well together, the Cricket and the kettle. The burden of the song was

still the same; and louder, louder, louder still, they sang it in their emulation.

The fair little listener for fair she was, and young: though something of what is called the dumpling shape;

but I don't myself object to that lighted a candle, glanced at the Haymaker on the top of the clock, who was

getting in a pretty average crop of minutes; and looked out of the window, where she saw nothing, owing to

the darkness, but her own face imaged in the glass. And my opinion is (and so would yours have been), that

she might have looked a long way, and seen nothing half so agreeable. When she came back, and sat down in

her former seat, the Cricket and the kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of competition. The

There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum

m m! Kettle making play in the distance, like a great top. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket round the corner.

Hum, hum, hum m m! Kettle sticking to him in his own way; no idea of giving in. Chirp, chirp, chirp!

Cricket fresher than ever. Hum, hum, hum m m! Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket

going in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum m m! Kettle not to be finished. Until at last they got so jumbled

together, in the hurryskurry, helterskelter, of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and the Cricket

hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, or they both chirped and both hummed, it would

have taken a clearer head than yours or mine to have decided with anything like certainty. But, of this, there

is no doubt: that, the kettle and the Cricket, at one and the same moment, and by some power of

amalgamation best known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside song of comfort streaming into a ray of the

candle that shone out through the window, and a long way down the lane. And this light, bursting on a certain

person who, on the instant, approached towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to him,

literally in a twinkling, and cried, 'Welcome home, old fellow! Welcome home, my boy!'

This end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was taken off the fire. Mrs. Peerybingle then

went running to the door, where, what with the wheels of a cart, the tramp of a horse, the voice of a man, the

tearing in and out of an excited dog, and the surprising and mysterious appearance of a baby, there was soon

Where the baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle got hold of it in that flash of time, I don't know. But a

live baby there was, in Mrs. Peerybingle's arms; and a pretty tolerable amount of pride she seemed to have in

it, when she was drawn gently to the fire, by a sturdy figure of a man, much taller and much older than

herself, who had to stoop a long way down, to kiss her. But she was worth the trouble. Six foot six, with the

He was something the worse for it, undeniably. The thick mist hung in clots upon his eyelashes like candied

thaw; and between the fog and fire together, there were rainbows in his very whiskers.

'Why, you see, Dot,' John made answer, slowly, as he unrolled a shawl from about his throat; and warmed his

'I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't like it,' said Mrs. Peerybingle: pouting in a way that clearly

'Why what else are you?' returned John, looking down upon her with a smile, and giving her waist as light a

squeeze as his huge hand and arm could give. 'A dot and' here he glanced at the baby 'a dot and carry I

won't say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I was very near a joke. I don't know as ever I was nearer.'

He was often near to something or other very clever, by his own account: this lumbering, slow, honest John;

this John so heavy, but so light of spirit; so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at the core; so dull without,

so quick within; so stolid, but so good! Oh Mother Nature, give thy children the true poetry of heart that hid

itself in this poor Carrier's breast he was but a Carrier by the way and we can bear to have them talking

It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure, and her baby in her arms: a very doll of a baby: glancing with

a coquettish thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her delicate little head just enough on one side to let it

rest in an odd, halfnatural, halfaffected, wholly nestling and agreeable manner, on the great rugged figure

of the Carrier. It was pleasant to see him, with his tender awkwardness, endeavouring to adapt his rude

support to her slight need, and make his burly middleage a leaningstaff not inappropriate to her blooming

youth. It was pleasant to observe how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the background for the baby, took special

cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this grouping; and stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, and

her head thrust forward, taking it in as if it were air. Nor was it less agreeable to observe how John the

Carrier, reference being made by Dot to the aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of touching

the infant, as if he thought he might crack it; and bending down, surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind

of puzzled pride, such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to show, if he found himself, one day, the

'It an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way!' said the astonished Carrier, 'is it? See how he's winking with

both of 'em at once! And look at his mouth! Why he's gasping like a gold and silver fish!'

'You don't deserve to be a father, you don't,' said Dot, with all the dignity of an experienced matron. 'But how

should you know what little complaints children are troubled with, John! You wouldn't so much as know

their names, you stupid fellow.' And when she had turned the baby over on her left arm, and had slapped its

'No,' said John, pulling off his outer coat. 'It's very true, Dot. I don't know much about it. I only know that I've

been fighting pretty stiffly with the wind tonight. It's been blowing north east, straight into the cart, the

'Poor old man, so it has!' cried Mrs. Peerybingle, instantly becoming very active. 'Here! Take the precious

darling, Tilly, while I make myself of some use. Bless it, I could smother it with kissing it, I could! Hie then,

good dog! Hie, Boxer, boy! Only let me make the tea first, John; and then I'll help you with the parcels, like a

busy bee. "How doth the little" and all the rest of it, you know, John. Did you ever learn "how doth the

'Not to quite know it,' John returned. 'I was very near it once. But I should only have spoilt it, I dare say.'

'Ha ha,' laughed Dot. She had the blithest little laugh you ever heard. 'What a dear old darling of a dunce you

Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see that the boy with the lantern, which had been dancing

to and fro before the door and window, like a Will of the Wisp, took due care of the horse; who was fatter

than you would quite believe, if I gave you his measure, and so old that his birthday was lost in the mists of

antiquity. Boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the family in general, and must be impartially

distributed, dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy; now, describing a circle of short barks round the

horse, where he was being rubbed down at the stabledoor; now feigning to make savage rushes at his

mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now, eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the

low nursingchair near the fire, by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance; now,

exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby; now, going round and round upon the hearth, and lying down as

if he had established himself for the night; now, getting up again, and taking that nothing of a fagend of a

tail of his, out into the weather, as if he had just remembered an appointment, and was off, at a round trot, to

'There! There's the teapot, ready on the hob!' said Dot; as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house.

'And there's the old knuckle of ham; and there's the butter; and there's the crusty loaf, and all! Here's the

clothesbasket for the small parcels, John, if you've got any there where are you, John?'

It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting the caution with some vivacity, that she had a rare

and surprising talent for getting this baby into difficulties and had several times imperilled its short life, in a

quiet way peculiarly her own. She was of a spare and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch that her

garments appeared to be in constant danger of sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were

loosely hung. Her costume was remarkable for the partial development, on all possible occasions, of some

flannel vestment of a singular structure; also for affording glimpses, in the region of the back, of a corset, or

pair of stays, in colour a deadgreen. Being always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and

absorbed, besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's perfections and the baby's, Miss Slowboy,

in her little errors of judgment, may be said to have done equal honour to her head and to her heart; and

though these did less honour to the baby's head, which they were the occasional means of bringing into

contact with deal doors, dressers, stairrails, bedposts, and other foreign substances, still they were the

honest results of Tilly Slowboy's constant astonishment at finding herself so kindly treated, and installed in

such a comfortable home. For, the maternal and paternal Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and Tilly

had been bred by public charity, a foundling; which word, though only differing from fondling by one

vowel's length, is very different in meaning, and expresses quite another thing.

To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her husband, tugging at the clothesbasket, and making

the most strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried it), would have amused you almost as much

as it amused him. It may have entertained the Cricket too, for anything I know; but, certainly, it now began to

'Heyday!' said John, in his slow way. 'It's merrier than ever, to night, I think.'

'And it's sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has done so. To have a Cricket on the Hearth, is the

John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought into his head, that she was his Cricket in chief, and

he quite agreed with her. But, it was probably one of his narrow escapes, for he said nothing.

'The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John, was on that night when you brought me home when you

brought me to my new home here; its little mistress. Nearly a year ago. You recollect, John?'

'Its chirp was such a welcome to me! It seemed so full of promise and encouragement. It seemed to say, you

would be kind and gentle with me, and would not expect (I had a fear of that, John, then) to find an old head

John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the head, as though he would have said No, no; he

had had no such expectation; he had been quite content to take them as they were. And really he had reason.

'It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so; for you have ever been, I am sure, the best, the most

considerate, the most affectionate of husbands to me. This has been a happy home, John; and I love the

'I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me.

Sometimes, in the twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and downhearted, John before baby was here

to keep me company and make the house gay when I have thought how lonely you would be if I should die;

how lonely I should be if I could know that you had lost me, dear; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp upon the hearth, has

seemed to tell me of another little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose coming sound my trouble

vanished like a dream. And when I used to fear I did fear once, John, I was very young you know that

ours might prove to be an illassorted marriage, I being such a child, and you more like my guardian than my

husband; and that you might not, however hard you tried, be able to learn to love me, as you hoped and

prayed you might; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp has cheered me up again, and filled me with new trust and

confidence. I was thinking of these things tonight, dear, when I sat expecting you; and I love the Cricket for

'And so do I,' repeated John. 'But, Dot? I hope and pray that I might learn to love you? How you talk! I had

learnt that, long before I brought you here, to be the Cricket's little mistress, Dot!'

She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him with an agitated face, as if she would have told

him something. Next moment she was down upon her knees before the basket, speaking in a sprightly voice,

'There are not many of them tonight, John, but I saw some goods behind the cart, just now; and though they

give more trouble, perhaps, still they pay as well; so we have no reason to grumble, have we? Besides, you

'Leave a woman alone to find out that,' said John, admiringly. 'Now a man would never have thought of it.

Whereas, it's my belief that if you was to pack a weddingcake up in a teachest, or a turnup bedstead, or a

pickled salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure to find it out directly. Yes; I called for it at

'And it weighs I don't know what whole hundredweights!' cried Dot, making a great demonstration of

'You never mean to say,' pursued Dot, sitting on the floor and shaking her head at him, 'that it's Gruff and

Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. Not in assent in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing

up her lips the while with all their little force (they were never made for screwing up; I am clear of that), and

looking the good Carrier through and through, in her abstraction. Miss Slowboy, in the mean time, who had a

mechanical power of reproducing scraps of current conversation for the delectation of the baby, with all the

sense struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into the plural number, inquired aloud of that young

creature, Was it Gruffs and Tackletons the toymakers then, and Would it call at Pastrycooks for

weddingcakes, and Did its mothers know the boxes when its fathers brought them homes; and so on.

'And that is really to come about!' said Dot. 'Why, she and I were girls at school together, John.'

He might have been thinking of her, or nearly thinking of her, perhaps, as she was in that same school time.

'And he's as old! As unlike her! Why, how many years older than you, is Gruff and Tackleton, John?'

'How many more cups of tea shall I drink tonight at one sitting, than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four,

I wonder!' replied John, goodhumouredly, as he drew a chair to the round table, and began at the cold ham.

Even this, his usual sentiment at meal times, one of his innocent delusions (for his appetite was always

obstinate, and flatly contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of his little wife, who stood among the

parcels, pushing the cakebox slowly from her with her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes were

cast down too, upon the dainty shoe she generally was so mindful of. Absorbed in thought, she stood there,

heedless alike of the tea and John (although he called to her, and rapped the table with his knife to startle her),

until he rose and touched her on the arm; when she looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place

behind the teaboard, laughing at her negligence. But, not as she had laughed before. The manner and the

The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it.

'So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?' she said, breaking a long silence, which the honest Carrier had

devoted to the practical illustration of one part of his favourite sentiment certainly enjoying what he ate, if

it couldn't be admitted that he ate but little. 'So, these are all the parcels; are they, John?'

'That's all,' said John. 'Why no I ' laying down his knife and fork, and taking a long breath. 'I declare

'In the cart,' said John. 'He was asleep, among the straw, the last time I saw him. I've very nearly remembered

him, twice, since I came in; but he went out of my head again. Holloa! Yahip there! Rouse up! That's my

John said these latter words outside the door, whither he had hurried with the candle in his hand.

Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to The Old Gentleman, and connecting in her

mystified imagination certain associations of a religious nature with the phrase, was so disturbed, that hastily

rising from the low chair by the fire to seek protection near the skirts of her mistress, and coming into contact

as she crossed the doorway with an ancient Stranger, she instinctively made a charge or butt at him with the

only offensive instrument within her reach. This instrument happening to be the baby, great commotion and

alarm ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer rather tended to increase; for, that good dog, more thoughtful than

its master, had, it seemed, been watching the old gentleman in his sleep, lest he should walk off with a few

young poplar trees that were tied up behind the cart; and he still attended on him very closely, worrying his

'You're such an undeniable good sleeper, sir,' said John, when tranquillity was restored; in the mean time the

old gentleman had stood, bareheaded and motionless, in the centre of the room; 'that I have half a mind to ask

you where the other six are only that would be a joke, and I know I should spoil it. Very near though,'

The Stranger, who had long white hair, good features, singularly bold and well defined for an old man, and

dark, bright, penetrating eyes, looked round with a smile, and saluted the Carrier's wife by gravely inclining

His garb was very quaint and odd a long, long way behind the time. Its hue was brown, all over. In his hand

he held a great brown club or walkingstick; and striking this upon the floor, it fell asunder, and became a

'There!' said the Carrier, turning to his wife. 'That's the way I found him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a

'In the open air,' replied the Carrier, 'just at dusk. "Carriage Paid," he said; and gave me eighteenpence. Then

'If you please, I was to be left till called for,' said the Stranger, mildly. 'Don't mind me.'

With that, he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large pockets, and a book from another, and leisurely

The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. The Stranger raised his head; and glancing from the

He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. But, before he could have read two lines, he again

John gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an answer in the affirmative, delivered through a speaking

Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. 'Two months and three da ays! Vaccinated just six weeks agoo! Took

very finely! Considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful chiild! Equal to the general run of children

at five months oold! Takes notice, in a way quite wonderful! May seem impossible to you, but feels his legs

Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these short sentences into the old man's ear, until

her pretty face was crimsoned, held up the Baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant fact; while Tilly

Slowboy, with a melodious cry of 'Ketcher, Ketcher' which sounded like some unknown words, adapted to

a popular Sneeze performed some cowlike gambols round that all unconscious Innocent.

'Hark! He's called for, sure enough,' said John. 'There's somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly.'

Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from without; being a primitive sort of door, with a latch,

that any one could lift if he chose and a good many people did choose, for all kinds of neighbours liked to

have a cheerful word or two with the Carrier, though he was no great talker himself. Being opened, it gave

admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingyfaced man, who seemed to have made himself a greatcoat

from the sackcloth covering of some old box; for, when he turned to shut the door, and keep the weather

out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment, the inscription G T in large black capitals. Also the word

'Good evening, John!' said the little man. 'Good evening, Mum. Good evening, Tilly. Good evening,

'All thriving, Caleb,' replied Dot. 'I am sure you need only look at the dear child, for one, to know that.'

He didn't look at her though; he had a wandering and thoughtful eye which seemed to be always projecting

itself into some other time and place, no matter what he said; a description which will equally apply to his

'Or at John for another,' said Caleb. 'Or at Tilly, as far as that goes. Or certainly at Boxer.'

'Why, pretty well, John,' he returned, with the distraught air of a man who was casting about for the

Philosopher's stone, at least. 'Pretty much so. There's rather a run on Noah's Arks at present. I could have

wished to improve upon the Family, but I don't see how it's to be done at the price. It would be a satisfaction

to one's mind, to make it clearer which was Shems and Hams, and which was Wives. Flies an't on that scale

neither, as compared with elephants you know! Ah! well! Have you got anything in the parcel line for me,

The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had taken off; and brought out, carefully preserved in

'There it is!' he said, adjusting it with great care. 'Not so much as a leaf damaged. Full of buds!'

'Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, whatever it cost,' returned the little man. 'Anything else, John?'

'"For Caleb Plummer,"' said the little man, spelling out the direction. '"With Cash." With Cash, John? I don't

'With Care,' returned the Carrier, looking over his shoulder. 'Where do you make out cash?'

'Oh! To be sure!' said Caleb. 'It's all right. With care! Yes, yes; that's mine. It might have been with cash,

indeed, if my dear Boy in the Golden South Americas had lived, John. You loved him like a son; didn't you?

You needn't say you did. I know, of course. "Caleb Plummer. With care." Yes, yes, it's all right. It's a box of

dolls' eyes for my daughter's work. I wish it was her own sight in a box, John.'

'Thank'ee,' said the little man. 'You speak very hearty. To think that she should never see the Dolls and

them astaring at her, so bold, all day long! That's where it cuts. What's the damage, John?'

'Well! it's like you to say so,' observed the little man. 'It's your kind way. Let me see. I think that's all.'

'Something for our Governor, eh?' said Caleb, after pondering a little while. 'To be sure. That's what I came

for; but my head's so running on them Arks and things! He hasn't been here, has he?'

'He's coming round though,' said Caleb; 'for he told me to keep on the near side of the road going home, and

it was ten to one he'd take me up. I had better go, by the bye. You couldn't have the goodness to let me

'Oh never mind, Mum,' said the little man. 'He mightn't like it perhaps. There's a small order just come in, for

barking dogs; and I should wish to go as close to Natur' as I could, for sixpence. That's all. Never mind,

It happened opportunely, that Boxer, without receiving the proposed stimulus, began to bark with great zeal.

But, as this implied the approach of some new visitor, Caleb, postponing his study from the life to a more

convenient season, shouldered the round box, and took a hurried leave. He might have spared himself the

'Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I'll take you home. John Peerybingle, my service to you. More of my

service to your pretty wife. Handsomer every day! Better too, if possible! And younger,' mused the speaker,

'I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. Tackleton,' said Dot, not with the best grace in the

Tackleton the Toymerchant, pretty generally known as Gruff and Tackleton for that was the firm, though

Gruff had been bought out long ago; only leaving his name, and as some said his nature, according to its

Dictionary meaning, in the business Tackleton the Toymerchant, was a man whose vocation had been

quite misunderstood by his Parents and Guardians. If they had made him a Money Lender, or a sharp

Attorney, or a Sheriff's Officer, or a Broker, he might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and, after

having had the full run of himself in illnatured transactions, might have turned out amiable, at last, for the

sake of a little freshness and novelty. But, cramped and chafing in the peaceable pursuit of toymaking, he

was a domestic Ogre, who had been living on children all his life, and was their implacable enemy. He

despised all toys; wouldn't have bought one for the world; delighted, in his malice, to insinuate grim

expressions into the faces of brownpaper farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost

lawyers' consciences, movable old ladies who darned stockings or carved pies; and other like samples of his

stock in trade. In appalling masks; hideous, hairy, redeyed Jacks in Boxes; Vampire Kites; demoniacal

Tumblers who wouldn't lie down, and were perpetually flying forward, to stare infants out of countenance;

his soul perfectly revelled. They were his only relief, and safetyvalve. He was great in such inventions.

Anything suggestive of a Ponynightmare was delicious to him. He had even lost money (and he took to that

toy very kindly) by getting up Goblin slides for magiclanterns, whereon the Powers of Darkness were

depicted as a sort of supernatural shellfish, with human faces. In intensifying the portraiture of Giants, he

had sunk quite a little capital; and, though no painter himself, he could indicate, for the instruction of his

artists, with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive leer for the countenances of those monsters, which was safe to

destroy the peace of mind of any young gentleman between the ages of six and eleven, for the whole

What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in other things. You may easily suppose, therefore, that within

the great green cape, which reached down to the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up to the chin an

uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was about as choice a spirit, and as agreeable a companion, as ever

Still, Tackleton, the toymerchant, was going to be married. In spite of all this, he was going to be married.

He didn't look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier's kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a

screw in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into the bottoms

of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill conditioned self peering out of one little corner of one little eye,

like the concentrated essence of any number of ravens. But, a Bridegroom he designed to be.

'In three days' time. Next Thursday. The last day of the first month in the year. That's my weddingday,' said

Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and one eye nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly

The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is not to be described. What next? His imagination

would compass the possibility of just such another Baby, perhaps. The man was mad.

'I say! A word with you,' murmured Tackleton, nudging the Carrier with his elbow, and taking him a little

'A little disparity, you know,' said Tackleton, with another nudge. 'Come and spend an evening with us,

'Why?' returned the other. 'That's a new way of receiving an invitation. Why, for pleasure sociability, you

'Tchah! It's of no use to be anything but free with you, I see,' said Tackleton. 'Why, then, the truth is you have

a what tea drinking people call a sort of a comfortable appearance together, you and your wife. We know

'Well! We DON'T know better, then,' said Tackleton. 'We'll agree that we don't. As you like; what does it

matter? I was going to say, as you have that sort of appearance, your company will produce a favourable

effect on Mrs. Tackleton that will be. And, though I don't think your good lady's very friendly to me, in this

matter, still she can't help herself from falling into my views, for there's a compactness and cosiness of

appearance about her that always tells, even in an indifferent case. You'll say you'll come?'

'We have arranged to keep our WeddingDay (as far as that goes) at home,' said John. 'We have made the

'Bah! what's home?' cried Tackleton. 'Four walls and a ceiling! (why don't you kill that Cricket? I would! I

always do. I hate their noise.) There are four walls and a ceiling at my house. Come to me!'

'Scrunch 'em, sir,' returned the other, setting his heel heavily on the floor. 'You'll say you'll come? it's as much

your interest as mine, you know, that the women should persuade each other that they're quiet and contented,

and couldn't be better off. I know their way. Whatever one woman says, another woman is determined to

clinch, always. There's that spirit of emulation among 'em, sir, that if your wife says to my wife, "I'm the

happiest woman in the world, and mine's the best husband in the world, and I dote on him," my wife will say

The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, 'dote upon you.' But, happening to meet the halfclosed eye, as it

twinkled upon him over the turnedup collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking it out, he felt it

such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to be doted on, that he substituted, 'that she don't believe it?'

But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift of his meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner,

'I have the humour,' said Tackleton: holding up the fingers of his left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to

imply 'there I am, Tackleton to wit:' 'I have the humour, sir, to marry a young wife, and a pretty wife:' here he

rapped his little finger, to express the Bride; not sparingly, but sharply; with a sense of power. 'I'm able to

He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully, before the fire; leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand,

and watching the bright blaze. The Carrier looked at her, and then at him, and then at her, and then at him

'She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know,' said Tackleton; 'and that, as I am not a man of sentiment, is

'I think,' observed the Carrier, 'that I should chuck any man out of window, who said there wasn't.'

'Exactly so,' returned the other with an unusual alacrity of assent. 'To be sure! Doubtless you would. Of

The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and uncertain, in spite of himself. He couldn't help

'Good night, my dear friend!' said Tackleton, compassionately. 'I'm off. We're exactly alike, in reality, I see.

You won't give us tomorrow evening? Well! Next day you go out visiting, I know. I'll meet you there, and

bring my wife that is to be. It'll do her good. You're agreeable? Thank'ee. What's that!'

It was a loud cry from the Carrier's wife: a loud, sharp, sudden cry, that made the room ring, like a glass

vessel. She had risen from her seat, and stood like one transfixed by terror and surprise. The Stranger had

advanced towards the fire to warm himself, and stood within a short stride of her chair. But quite still.

They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who had been dozing on the cakebox, in the first imperfect

recovery of his suspended presence of mind, seized Miss Slowboy by the hair of her head, but immediately

'Mary!' exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his arms. 'Are you ill! What is it? Tell me, dear!'

She only answered by beating her hands together, and falling into a wild fit of laughter. Then, sinking from

his grasp upon the ground, she covered her face with her apron, and wept bitterly. And then she laughed

again, and then she cried again, and then she said how cold it was, and suffered him to lead her to the fire,

'John!' But John was on the other side of her. Why turn her face towards the strange old gentleman, as if

'Only a fancy, John dear a kind of shock a something coming suddenly before my eyes I don't know

'I'm glad it's gone,' muttered Tackleton, turning the expressive eye all round the room. 'I wonder where it's

'I don't know, sir,' returned Caleb in a whisper. 'Never see him before, in all my life. A beautiful figure for a

nutcracker; quite a new model. With a screwjaw opening down into his waistcoat, he'd be lovely.'

'Or for a firebox, either,' observed Caleb, in deep contemplation, 'what a model! Unscrew his head to put the

matches in; turn him heels up'ards for the light; and what a firebox for a gentleman's mantelshelf, just as he

'Not half ugly enough,' said Tackleton. 'Nothing in him at all! Come! Bring that box! All right now, I hope?'

'Good night,' said Tackleton. 'Good night, John Peerybingle! Take care how you carry that box, Caleb. Let it

fall, and I'll murder you! Dark as pitch, and weather worse than ever, eh? Good night!'

So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out at the door; followed by Caleb with the

The Carrier had been so much astounded by his little wife, and so busily engaged in soothing and tending her,

that he had scarcely been conscious of the Stranger's presence, until now, when he again stood there, their

'I beg your pardon, friend,' said the old gentleman, advancing to him; 'the more so, as I fear your wife has not

been well; but the Attendant whom my infirmity,' he touched his ears and shook his head, 'renders almost

indispensable, not having arrived, I fear there must be some mistake. The bad night which made the shelter of

your comfortable cart (may I never have a worse!) so acceptable, is still as bad as ever. Would you, in your

'I know he is, but Yes, sir, certainly. Yes! certainly! I'll make him up a bed, directly, John.'

As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the agitation of her manner, were so strange that the

'Did its mothers make it up a Beds then!' cried Miss Slowboy to the Baby; 'and did its hair grow brown and

curly, when its caps was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, asitting by the fires!'

With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is often incidental to a state of doubt and

confusion, the Carrier as he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even these absurd

words, many times. So many times that he got them by heart, and was still conning them over and over, like a

lesson, when Tilly, after administering as much friction to the little bald head with her hand as she thought

wholesome (according to the practice of nurses), had once more tied the Baby's cap on.

'And frighten it, a precious Pets, asitting by the fires. What frightened Dot, I wonder!' mused the Carrier,

He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the Toymerchant, and yet they filled him with a vague,

indefinite uneasiness. For, Tackleton was quick and sly; and he had that painful sense, himself, of being of

slow perception, that a broken hint was always worrying to him. He certainly had no intention in his mind of

linking anything that Tackleton had said, with the unusual conduct of his wife, but the two subjects of

The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining all refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then, Dot

quite well again, she said, quite well again arranged the great chair in the chimneycorner for her husband;

filled his pipe and gave it him; and took her usual little stool beside him on the hearth.

She always WOULD sit on that little stool. I think she must have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing,

She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I should say, in the four quarters of the globe. To see her

put that chubby little finger in the bowl, and then blow down the pipe to clear the tube, and, when she had

done so, affect to think that there was really something in the tube, and blow a dozen times, and hold it to her

eye like a telescope, with a most provoking twist in her capital little face, as she looked down it, was quite a

brilliant thing. As to the tobacco, she was perfect mistress of the subject; and her lighting of the pipe, with a

wisp of paper, when the Carrier had it in his mouth going so very near his nose, and yet not scorching it

And the Cricket and the kettle, turning up again, acknowledged it! The bright fire, blazing up again,

acknowledged it! The little Mower on the clock, in his unheeded work, acknowledged it! The Carrier, in his

And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe, and as the Dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire

gleamed, and as the Cricket chirped; that Genius of his Hearth and Home (for such the Cricket was) came

out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned many forms of Home about him. Dots of all ages, and all

sizes, filled the chamber. Dots who were merry children, running on before him gathering flowers, in the

fields; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image; newlymarried

Dots, alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots,

attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; matronly Dots, still young and blooming,

watching Dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and beset by troops of rosy

grandchildren; withered Dots, who leaned on sticks, and tottered as they crept along. Old Carriers too,

appeared, with blind old Boxers lying at their feet; and newer carts with younger drivers ('Peerybingle

Brothers' on the tilt); and sick old Carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of dead and gone old

Carriers, green in the churchyard. And as the Cricket showed him all these things he saw them plainly,

though his eyes were fixed upon the fire the Carrier's heart grew light and happy, and he thanked his

Household Gods with all his might, and cared no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do.

But, what was that young figure of a man, which the same Fairy Cricket set so near Her stool, and which

remained there, singly and alone? Why did it linger still, so near her, with its arm upon the chimneypiece,

O Dot! O failing Dot! There is no place for it in all your husband's visions; why has its shadow fallen on his

CALEB PLUMMER and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, as the Storybooks say and my

blessing, with yours to back it I hope, on the Storybooks, for saying anything in this workaday world!

Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, in a little cracked nutshell of a wooden

house, which was, in truth, no better than a pimple on the prominent redbrick nose of Gruff and Tackleton.

The premises of Gruff and Tackleton were the great feature of the street; but you might have knocked down

Caleb Plummer's dwelling with a hammer or two, and carried off the pieces in a cart.

If any one had done the dwellinghouse of Caleb Plummer the honour to miss it after such an inroad, it

would have been, no doubt, to commend its demolition as a vast improvement. It stuck to the premises of

Gruff and Tackleton, like a barnacle to a ship's keel, or a snail to a door, or a little bunch of toadstools to the

But, it was the germ from which the fullgrown trunk of Gruff and Tackleton had sprung; and, under its

crazy roof, the Gruff before last, had, in a small way, made toys for a generation of old boys and girls, who

I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter lived here. I should have said that Caleb lived here, and

his poor Blind Daughter somewhere else in an enchanted home of Caleb's furnishing, where scarcity and

shabbiness were not, and trouble never entered. Caleb was no sorcerer, but in the only magic art that still

remains to us, the magic of devoted, deathless love, Nature had been the mistress of his study; and from her

The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discoloured, walls blotched and bare of plaster here and there,

high crevices unstopped and widening every day, beams mouldering and tending downward. The Blind Girl

never knew that iron was rusting, wood rotting, paper peeling off; the size, and shape, and true proportion of

the dwelling, withering away. The Blind Girl never knew that ugly shapes of delf and earthenware were on

the board; that sorrow and faintheartedness were in the house; that Caleb's scanty hairs were turning greyer

and more grey, before her sightless face. The Blind Girl never knew they had a master, cold, exacting, and

uninterested never knew that Tackleton was Tackleton in short; but lived in the belief of an eccentric

humourist who loved to have his jest with them, and who, while he was the Guardian Angel of their lives,

And all was Caleb's doing; all the doing of her simple father! But he too had a Cricket on his Hearth; and

listening sadly to its music when the motherless Blind Child was very young, that Spirit had inspired him

with the thought that even her great deprivation might be almost changed into a blessing, and the girl made

happy by these little means. For all the Cricket tribe are potent Spirits, even though the people who hold

converse with them do not know it (which is frequently the case); and there are not in the unseen world,

voices more gentle and more true, that may be so implicitly relied on, or that are so certain to give none but

tenderest counsel, as the Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside and the Hearth address themselves to

Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual workingroom, which served them for their

ordinary livingroom as well; and a strange place it was. There were houses in it, finished and unfinished, for

Dolls of all stations in life. Suburban tenements for Dolls of moderate means; kitchens and single apartments

for Dolls of the lower classes; capital town residences for Dolls of high estate. Some of these establishments

were already furnished according to estimate, with a view to the convenience of Dolls of limited income;

others could be fitted on the most expensive scale, at a moment's notice, from whole shelves of chairs and

tables, sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery. The nobility and gentry, and public in general, for whose

accommodation these tenements were designed, lay, here and there, in baskets, staring straight up at the

ceiling; but, in denoting their degrees in society, and confining them to their respective stations (which

experience shows to be lamentably difficult in real life), the makers of these Dolls had far improved on

Nature, who is often froward and perverse; for, they, not resting on such arbitrary marks as satin,

cottonprint, and bits of rag, had superadded striking personal differences which allowed of no mistake.

Thus, the Dolllady of distinction had wax limbs of perfect symmetry; but only she and her compeers. The

next grade in the social scale being made of leather, and the next of coarse linen stuff. As to the

commonpeople, they had just so many matches out of tinder boxes, for their arms and legs, and there they

were established in their sphere at once, beyond the possibility of getting out of it.

There were various other samples of his handicraft, besides Dolls, in Caleb Plummer's room. There were

Noah's Arks, in which the Birds and Beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I assure you; though they could be

crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and shaken into the smallest compass. By a bold poetical

licence, most of these Noah's Arks had knockers on the doors; inconsistent appendages, perhaps, as

suggestive of morning callers and a Postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building. There were

scores of melancholy little carts, which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. Many

small fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture; no end of cannon, shields, swords, spears, and guns.

There were little tumblers in red breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of redtape, and coming

down, head first, on the other side; and there were innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, not to say

venerable, appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs, inserted, for the purpose, in their own street

doors. There were beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spotted barrel on four

pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. As it would have been

hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were ever ready to commit all sorts of

absurdities on the turning of a handle, so it would have been no easy task to mention any human folly, vice,

or weakness, that had not its type, immediate or remote, in Caleb Plummer's room. And not in an exaggerated

form, for very little handles will move men and women to as strange performances, as any Toy was ever

In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter sat at work. The Blind Girl busy as a Doll's

dressmaker; Caleb painting and glazing the fourpair front of a desirable family mansion.

The care imprinted in the lines of Caleb's face, and his absorbed and dreamy manner, which would have sat

well on some alchemist or abstruse student, were at first sight an odd contrast to his occupation, and the

trivialities about him. But, trivial things, invented and pursued for bread, become very serious matters of fact;

and, apart from this consideration, I am not at all prepared to say, myself, that if Caleb had been a Lord

Chamberlain, or a Member of Parliament, or a lawyer, or even a great speculator, he would have dealt in toys

one whit less whimsical, while I have a very great doubt whether they would have been as harmless.

'So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your beautiful new greatcoat,' said Caleb's daughter.

'In my beautiful new greatcoat,' answered Caleb, glancing towards a clothesline in the room, on which the

'And of such a tailor, too,' said Caleb. 'Quite a fashionable tailor. It's too good for me.'

'I'm halfashamed to wear it though,' said Caleb, watching the effect of what he said, upon her brightening

face; 'upon my word! When I hear the boys and people say behind me, "Halloa! Here's a swell!" I don't

know which way to look. And when the beggar wouldn't go away last night; and when I said I was a very

common man, said "No, your Honour! Bless your Honour, don't say that!" I was quite ashamed. I really felt

'I see you, father,' she said, clasping her hands, 'as plainly, as if I had the eyes I never want when you are with

'Yes, yes! Bright blue!' exclaimed the girl, turning up her radiant face; 'the colour I can just remember in the

'Made loose to the figure!' cried the Blind Girl, laughing heartily; 'and in it, you, dear father, with your merry

eye, your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair looking so young and handsome!'

'I think you are, already,' cried the Blind Girl, pointing at him, in her glee. 'I know you, father! Ha, ha, ha!

How different the picture in her mind, from Caleb, as he sat observing her! She had spoken of his free step.

She was right in that. For years and years, he had never once crossed that threshold at his own slow pace, but

with a footfall counterfeited for her ear; and never had he, when his heart was heaviest, forgotten the light

Heaven knows! But I think Caleb's vague bewilderment of manner may have half originated in his having

confused himself about himself and everything around him, for the love of his Blind Daughter. How could

the little man be otherwise than bewildered, after labouring for so many years to destroy his own identity, and

'There we are,' said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the better judgment of his work; 'as near the real

thing as sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that the whole front of the house opens at once!

If there was only a staircase in it, now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at! But that's the worst of my

'Tired!' echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation, 'what should tire me, Bertha? I was never tired. What

To give the greater force to his words, he checked himself in an involuntary imitation of two halflength

stretching and yawning figures on the mantelshelf, who were represented as in one eternal state of weariness

from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment of a song. It was a Bacchanalian song, something about a

Sparkling Bowl. He sang it with an assumption of a Devilmaycare voice, that made his face a thousand

'What! You're singing, are you?' said Tackleton, putting his head in at the door. 'Go it! I can't sing.'

Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn't what is generally termed a singing face, by any means.

'I can't afford to sing,' said Tackleton. 'I'm glad YOU CAN. I hope you can afford to work too. Hardly time

'If you could only see him, Bertha, how he's winking at me!' whispered Caleb. 'Such a man to joke! you'd

'The bird that can sing and won't sing, must be made to sing, they say,' grumbled Tackleton. 'What about the

owl that can't sing, and oughtn't to sing, and will sing; is there anything that HE should be made to do?'

'The extent to which he's winking at this moment!' whispered Caleb to his daughter. 'O, my gracious!'

He really did believe she was an Idiot; and he founded the belief, I can't say whether consciously or not, upon

'Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you can wish me to be. As happy as you would make the whole

The Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a moment in her own two hands; and laid her cheek

against it tenderly, before releasing it. There was such unspeakable affection and such fervent gratitude in the

'I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to sleep last night, and remembered it in my dreams. And when

'Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha,' said poor Caleb, with a woeful glance at his employer.

'When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear to strike myself against in walking, came into the room, I

turned the little tree towards it, and blessed Heaven for making things so precious, and blessed you for

'Bedlam broke loose!' said Tackleton under his breath. 'We shall arrive at the straitwaistcoat and mufflers

Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as if

he really were uncertain (I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done anything to deserve her thanks, or

not. If he could have been a perfectly free agent, at that moment, required, on pain of death, to kick the Toy

merchant, or fall at his feet, according to his merits, I believe it would have been an even chance which

course he would have taken. Yet, Caleb knew that with his own hands he had brought the little rosetree

home for her, so carefully, and that with his own lips he had forged the innocent deception which should help

to keep her from suspecting how much, how very much, he every day, denied himself, that she might be the

'Bertha!' said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little cordiality. 'Come here.'

'This is the day on which little what'shername, the spoilt child, Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to

you makes her fantastic PicNic here; an't it?' said Tackleton, with a strong expression of distaste for the

'Yes, yes, I hear it,' murmured Caleb, with the fixed look of a sleepwalker; 'but I don't believe it. It's one of

'You see I I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more into company with May Fielding,' said Tackleton. 'I

'She's such a confounded Idiot,' muttered Tackleton, 'that I was afraid she'd never comprehend me. Ah,

Bertha! Married! Church, parson, clerk, beadle, glasscoach, bells, breakfast, bridecake, favours,

marrowbones, cleavers, and all the rest of the tomfoolery. A wedding, you know; a wedding. Don't you

'Do you?' muttered Tackleton. 'It's more than I expected. Well! On that account I want to join the party, and

to bring May and her mother. I'll send in a little something or other, before the afternoon. A cold leg of

She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her hands crossed, musing.

'I don't think you will,' muttered Tackleton, looking at her; 'for you seem to have forgotten all about it,

'SHE never forgets,' returned Caleb. 'It's one of the few things she an't clever in.'

'Every man thinks his own geese swans,' observed the Toymerchant, with a shrug. 'Poor devil!'

Having delivered himself of which remark, with infinite contempt, old Gruff and Tackleton withdrew.

Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. The gaiety had vanished from her downcast face,

and it was very sad. Three or four times she shook her head, as if bewailing some remembrance or some loss;

It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, in yoking a team of horses to a waggon by the summary

process of nailing the harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that she drew near to his workingstool, and

'Here they are,' said Caleb. 'Always ready. They are more yours than mine, Bertha, any hour in the

'It's much the same as usual,' said Caleb. 'Homely, but very snug. The gay colours on the walls; the bright

flowers on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the general cheerfulness

Cheerful and neat it was wherever Bertha's hands could busy themselves. But nowhere else, were

cheerfulness and neatness possible, in the old crazy shed which Caleb's fancy so transformed.

'You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as when you wear the handsome coat?' said Bertha,

'Father,' said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, and stealing one arm round his neck, 'tell me something

'She is indeed,' said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was quite a rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his

'Her hair is dark,' said Bertha, pensively, 'darker than mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have

'There's not a Doll's in all the room to equal it,' said Caleb. 'And her eyes! '

He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck, and from the arm that clung about him, came a

He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon the song about the sparkling bowl;

'Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never tired, you know, of hearing about him. Now, was I ever?' she

'Ah! With how much reason!' cried the Blind Girl. With such fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were

so pure, could not endure to meet her face; but dropped his eyes, as if she could have read in them his

'Then, tell me again about him, dear father,' said Bertha. 'Many times again! His face is benevolent, kind, and

tender. Honest and true, I am sure it is. The manly heart that tries to cloak all favours with a show of

'Yees,' said Caleb, reluctantly. 'He's a little older than May. But that don't signify.'

'Oh father, yes! To be his patient companion in infirmity and age; to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his

constant friend in suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake; to watch him, tend

him, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake, and pray for him asleep; what privileges these would be! What

opportunities for proving all her truth and devotion to him! Would she do all this, dear father?

'I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!' exclaimed the Blind Girl. And saying so, she laid her poor

blind face on Caleb's shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have brought that tearful

In the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp commotion at John Peerybingle's, for little Mrs. Peerybingle

naturally couldn't think of going anywhere without the Baby; and to get the Baby under weigh took time. Not

that there was much of the Baby, speaking of it as a thing of weight and measure, but there was a vast deal to

do about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance, when the Baby was got, by hook

and by crook, to a certain point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that another touch or two

would finish him off, and turn him out a tip top Baby challenging the world, he was unexpectedly

extinguished in a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) between two blankets

for the best part of an hour. From this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and roaring

violently, to partake of well? I would rather say, if you'll permit me to speak generally of a slight repast.

After which, he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of this interval, to make herself as

smart in a small way as ever you saw anybody in all your life; and, during the same short truce, Miss

Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection

with herself, or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog'seared, independent fact, pursuing its

lonely course without the least regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive again, was invested,

by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a creamcoloured mantle for its body, and

a sort of nankeen raisedpie for its head; and so in course of time they all three got down to the door, where

the old horse had already taken more than the full value of his day's toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing

up the road with his impatient autographs; and whence Boxer might be dimly seen in the remote perspective,

As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs. Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John,

if you think THAT was necessary. Before you could have seen him lift her from the ground, there she was in

If I might be allowed to mention a young lady's legs, on any terms, I would observe of Miss Slowboy's that

there was a fatality about them which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that she never

effected the smallest ascent or descent, without recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as

Robinson Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. But as this might be considered ungenteel, I'll

'John? You've got the Basket with the Veal and HamPie and things, and the bottles of Beer?' said Dot. 'If

'You're a nice little article,' returned the Carrier, 'to be talking about turning round, after keeping me a full

'I am sorry for it, John,' said Dot in a great bustle, 'but I really could not think of going to Bertha's I would

not do it, John, on any account without the Veal and HamPie and things, and the bottles of Beer. Way!'

'It'll be time enough to do that,' returned John, 'when I begin to leave things behind me. The basket's here,

'What a hardhearted monster you must be, John, not to have said so, at once, and save me such a turn! I

declared I wouldn't go to Bertha's without the Veal and HamPie and things, and the bottles of Beer, for any

money. Regularly once a fortnight ever since we have been married, John, have we made our little PicNic

there. If anything was to go wrong with it, I should almost think we were never to be lucky again.'

'It was a kind thought in the first instance,' said the Carrier: 'and I honour you for it, little woman.'

'My dear John,' replied Dot, turning very red, 'don't talk about honouring ME. Good Gracious!'

'He's an odd fish,' said the Carrier, looking straight along the road before them. 'I can't make him out. I don't

'Yes,' said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face by the great earnestness of her manner. 'I am glad

you feel so certain of it, because it's a confirmation to me. It's curious that he should have taken it into his

head to ask leave to go on lodging with us; an't it? Things come about so strangely.'

'However, he's a goodnatured old gentleman,' said John, 'and pays as a gentleman, and I think his word is to

be relied upon, like a gentleman's. I had quite a long talk with him this morning: he can hear me better

already, he says, as he gets more used to my voice. He told me a great deal about himself, and I told him a

great deal about myself, and a rare lot of questions he asked me. I gave him information about my having two

beats, you know, in my business; one day to the right from our house and back again; another day to the left

from our house and back again (for he's a stranger and don't know the names of places about here); and he

seemed quite pleased. "Why, then I shall be returning home to night your way," he says, "when I thought

you'd be coming in an exactly opposite direction. That's capital! I may trouble you for another lift perhaps,

but I'll engage not to fall so sound asleep again." He WAS sound asleep, surely! Dot! what are you

'O! That's all right!' said the honest Carrier. 'I was afraid, from the look of your face, that I had gone rambling

on so long, as to set you thinking about something else. I was very near it, I'll be bound.'

Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, in silence. But, it was not easy to remain silent

very long in John Peerybingle's cart, for everybody on the road had something to say. Though it might only

be 'How are you!' and indeed it was very often nothing else, still, to give that back again in the right spirit of

cordiality, required, not merely a nod and a smile, but as wholesome an action of the lungs withal, as a

longwinded Parliamentary speech. Sometimes, passengers on foot, or horseback, plodded on a little way

beside the cart, for the express purpose of having a chat; and then there was a great deal to be said, on both

Then, Boxer gave occasion to more goodnatured recognitions of, and by, the Carrier, than halfadozen

Christians could have done! Everybody knew him, all along the road especially the fowls and pigs, who

when they saw him approaching, with his body all on one side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and that

knob of a tail making the most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew into remote back settlements,

without waiting for the honour of a nearer acquaintance. He had business everywhere; going down all the

turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the

DameSchools, fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats, and trotting into the

publichouses like a regular customer. Wherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry,

'Halloa! Here's Boxer!' and out came that somebody forthwith, accompanied by at least two or three other

The packages and parcels for the errand cart, were numerous; and there were many stoppages to take them in

and give them out, which were not by any means the worst parts of the journey. Some people were so full of

expectation about their parcels, and other people were so full of wonder about their parcels, and other people

were so full of inexhaustible directions about their parcels, and John had such a lively interest in all the

parcels, that it was as good as a play. Likewise, there were articles to carry, which required to be considered

and discussed, and in reference to the adjustment and disposition of which, councils had to be holden by the

Carrier and the senders: at which Boxer usually assisted, in short fits of the closest attention, and long fits of

tearing round and round the assembled sages and barking himself hoarse. Of all these little incidents, Dot was

the amused and openeyed spectatress from her chair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on a

charming little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt there was no lack of nudgings and glancings and

whisperings and envyings among the younger men. And this delighted John the Carrier, beyond measure; for

he was proud to have his little wife admired, knowing that she didn't mind it that, if anything, she rather

The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January weather; and was raw and cold. But who cared for such

trifles? Not Dot, decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be the

highest point of human joys; the crowning circumstance of earthly hopes. Not the Baby, I'll be sworn; for it's

not in Baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep, though its capacity is great in both respects, than that

You couldn't see very far in the fog, of course; but you could see a great deal! It's astonishing how much you

may see, in a thicker fog than that, if you will only take the trouble to look for it. Why, even to sit watching

for the Fairyrings in the fields, and for the patches of hoarfrost still lingering in the shade, near hedges and

by trees, was a pleasant occupation: to make no mention of the unexpected shapes in which the trees

themselves came starting out of the mist, and glided into it again. The hedges were tangled and bare, and

waved a multitude of blighted garlands in the wind; but there was no discouragement in this. It was agreeable

to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer in possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. The

river looked chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good pace which was a great point. The canal was

rather slow and torpid; that must be admitted. Never mind. It would freeze the sooner when the frost set fairly

in, and then there would be skating, and sliding; and the heavy old barges, frozen up somewhere near a wharf,

In one place, there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning; and they watched the fire, so white in the

daytime, flaring through the fog, with only here and there a dash of red in it, until, in consequence, as she

observed, of the smoke 'getting up her nose,' Miss Slowboy choked she could do anything of that sort, on

the smallest provocation and woke the Baby, who wouldn't go to sleep again. But, Boxer, who was in

advance some quarter of a mile or so, had already passed the outposts of the town, and gained the corner of

the street where Caleb and his daughter lived; and long before they had reached the door, he and the Blind

Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of his own, in his communication with Bertha, which

persuade me fully that he knew her to be blind. He never sought to attract her attention by looking at her, as

he often did with other people, but touched her invariably. What experience he could ever have had of blind

people or blind dogs, I don't know. He had never lived with a blind master; nor had Mr. Boxer the elder, nor

Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his respectable family on either side, ever been visited with blindness, that I am aware

of. He may have found it out for himself, perhaps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and therefore he had

hold of Bertha too, by the skirt, and kept bold, until Mrs. Peerybingle and the Baby, and Miss Slowboy, and

May Fielding was already come; and so was her mother a little querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish

face, who, in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most transcendent figure;

and who, in consequence of having once been better off, or of labouring under an impression that she might

have been, if something had happened which never did happen, and seemed to have never been particularly

likely to come to pass but it's all the same was very genteel and patronising indeed. Gruff and Tackleton

was also there, doing the agreeable, with the evident sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as

unquestionably in his own element, as a fresh young salmon on the top of the Great Pyramid.

'May! My dear old friend!' cried Dot, running up to meet her. 'What a happiness to see you.'

Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; and it really was, if you'll believe me, quite a

pleasant sight to see them embrace. Tackleton was a man of taste beyond all question. May was very pretty.

You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, how, when it comes into contact and comparison

with another pretty face, it seems for the moment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve the high

opinion you have had of it. Now, this was not at all the case, either with Dot or May; for May's face set off

Dot's, and Dot's face set off May's, so naturally and agreeably, that, as John Peerybingle was very near saying

when he came into the room, they ought to have been born sisters which was the only improvement you

Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful to relate, a tart besides but we don't mind a little

dissipation when our brides are in the case. we don't get married every day and in addition to these dainties,

there were the Veal and HamPie, and 'things,' as Mrs. Peerybingle called them; which were chiefly nuts and

oranges, and cakes, and such small deer. When the repast was set forth on the board, flanked by Caleb's

contribution, which was a great wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by solemn compact,

from producing any other viands), Tackleton led his intended motherinlaw to the post of honour. For the

better gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic old soul had adorned herself with a cap,

calculated to inspire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She also wore her gloves. But let us be genteel,

Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow were side by side; the good Carrier took care of the

bottom of the table. Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article of furniture but the

chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to knock the Baby's head against.

As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared at her and at the company. The venerable old

gentlemen at the street doors (who were all in full action) showed especial interest in the party, pausing

occasionally before leaping, as if they were listening to the conversation, and then plunging wildly over and

over, a great many times, without halting for breath as in a frantic state of delight with the whole

Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a fiendish joy in the contemplation of Tackleton's

discomfiture, they had good reason to be satisfied. Tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the more cheerful his

intended bride became in Dot's society, the less he liked it, though he had brought them together for that

purpose. For he was a regular dog in the manger, was Tackleton; and when they laughed and he couldn't, he

'Ah, May!' said Dot. 'Dear dear, what changes! To talk of those merry schooldays makes one young again.'

'Look at my sober plodding husband there,' returned Dot. 'He adds twenty years to my age at least. Don't you,

'How many YOU'll add to May's, I am sure I don't know,' said Dot, laughing. 'But she can't be much less than

'Ha ha!' laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum, that laugh though. And he looked as if he could have twisted

'Dear dear!' said Dot. 'Only to remember how we used to talk, at school, about the husbands we would

choose. I don't know how young, and how handsome, and how gay, and how lively, mine was not to be! And

as to May's! Ah dear! I don't know whether to laugh or cry, when I think what silly girls we were.'

May seemed to know which to do; for the colour flushed into her face, and tears stood in her eyes.

'Even the very persons themselves real live young men were fixed on sometimes,' said Dot. 'We little

thought how things would come about. I never fixed on John I'm sure; I never so much as thought of him.

And if I had told you, you were ever to be married to Mr. Tackleton, why you'd have slapped me. Wouldn't

Though May didn't say yes, she certainly didn't say no, or express no, by any means.

Tackleton laughed quite shouted, he laughed so loud. John Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary

goodnatured and contented manner; but his was a mere whisper of a laugh, to Tackleton's.

'You couldn't help yourselves, for all that. You couldn't resist us, you see,' said Tackleton. 'Here we are! Here

'Some of them are dead,' said Dot; 'and some of them forgotten. Some of them, if they could stand among us

at this moment, would not believe we were the same creatures; would not believe that what they saw and

heard was real, and we COULD forget them so. No! they would not believe one word of it!'

She had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she stood in need of some recalling to herself, without

doubt. Her husband's cheek was very gentle, for he merely interfered, as he supposed, to shield old

Tackleton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped, and said no more. There was an uncommon agitation,

even in her silence, which the wary Tackleton, who had brought his halfshut eye to bear upon her, noted

May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with her eyes cast down, and made no sign of interest in

what had passed. The good lady her mother now interposed, observing, in the first instance, that girls were

girls, and byegones byegones, and that so long as young people were young and thoughtless, they would

probably conduct themselves like young and thoughtless persons: with two or three other positions of a no

less sound and incontrovertible character. She then remarked, in a devout spirit, that she thanked Heaven she

had always found in her daughter May, a dutiful and obedient child; for which she took no credit to herself,

though she had every reason to believe it was entirely owing to herself. With regard to Mr. Tackleton she

said, That he was in a moral point of view an undeniable individual, and That he was in an eligible point of

view a soninlaw to be desired, no one in their senses could doubt. (She was very emphatic here.) With

regard to the family into which he was so soon about, after some solicitation, to be admitted, she believed Mr.

Tackleton knew that, although reduced in purse, it had some pretensions to gentility; and if certain

circumstances, not wholly unconnected, she would go so far as to say, with the Indigo Trade, but to which

she would not more particularly refer, had happened differently, it might perhaps have been in possession of

wealth. She then remarked that she would not allude to the past, and would not mention that her daughter had

for some time rejected the suit of Mr. Tackleton; and that she would not say a great many other things which

she did say, at great length. Finally, she delivered it as the general result of her observation and experience,

that those marriages in which there was least of what was romantically and sillily called love, were always

the happiest; and that she anticipated the greatest possible amount of bliss not rapturous bliss; but the solid,

steadygoing article from the approaching nuptials. She concluded by informing the company that

tomorrow was the day she had lived for, expressly; and that when it was over, she would desire nothing

As these remarks were quite unanswerable which is the happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently

wide of the purpose they changed the current of the conversation, and diverted the general attention to the

Veal and HamPie, the cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. In order that the bottled beer might not be

slighted, John Peerybingle proposed Tomorrow: the WeddingDay; and called upon them to drink a bumper

For you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave the old horse a bait. He had to go some four of five

miles farther on; and when he returned in the evening, he called for Dot, and took another rest on his way

home. This was the order of the day on all the PicNic occasions, had been, ever since their institution.

There were two persons present, besides the bride and bridegroom elect, who did but indifferent honour to the

toast. One of these was Dot, too flushed and discomposed to adapt herself to any small occurrence of the

moment; the other, Bertha, who rose up hurriedly, before the rest, and left the table.

'Good bye!' said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his dreadnought coat. 'I shall be back at the old time.

He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the same unconscious manner; for he stood observing

'Good bye, young shaver!' said the jolly Carrier, bending down to kiss the child; which Tilly Slowboy, now

intent upon her knife and fork, had deposited asleep (and strange to say, without damage) in a little cot of

Bertha's furnishing; 'good bye! Time will come, I suppose, when YOU'LL turn out into the cold, my little

friend, and leave your old father to enjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the chimneycorner; eh? Where's

'Come, come!' returned the Carrier, clapping his sounding hands. 'Where's the pipe?'

But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual place the Carrier's dreadnought pocket with the

little pouch, her own work, from which she was used to fill it, but her hand shook so, that she entangled it

(and yet her hand was small enough to have come out easily, I am sure), and bungled terribly. The filling of

the pipe and lighting it, those little offices in which I have commended her discretion, were vilely done, from

first to last. During the whole process, Tackleton stood looking on maliciously with the halfclosed eye;

which, whenever it met hers or caught it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another eye: rather being

a kind of trap to snatch it up augmented her confusion in a most remarkable degree.

'Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!' said John. 'I could have done it better myself, I verify

With these goodnatured words, he strode away, and presently was heard, in company with Boxer, and the

old horse, and the cart, making lively music down the road. What time the dreamy Caleb still stood, watching

'Bertha!' said Caleb, softly. 'What has happened? How changed you are, my darling, in a few hours since

'Oh father, father!' cried the Blind Girl, bursting into tears. 'Oh my hard, hard fate!'

'But think how cheerful and how happy you have been, Bertha! How good, and how much loved, by many

'That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always so mindful of me! Always so kind to me!'

'To be to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear,' he faltered, 'is a great affliction; but '

'I have never felt it!' cried the Blind Girl. 'I have never felt it, in its fulness. Never! I have sometimes wished

that I could see you, or could see him only once, dear father, only for one little minute that I might know

what it is I treasure up,' she laid her hands upon her breast, 'and hold here! That I might be sure and have it

right! And sometimes (but then I was a child) I have wept in my prayers at night, to think that when your

images ascended from my heart to Heaven, they might not be the true resemblance of yourselves. But I have

never had these feelings long. They have passed away and left me tranquil and contented.'

'But, father! Oh my good, gentle father, bear with me, if I am wicked!' said the Blind Girl. 'This is not the

Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow; she was so earnest and pathetic, but he did not

'Bring her to me,' said Bertha. 'I cannot hold it closed and shut within myself. Bring her to me, father!'

May heard the mention of her name, and coming quietly towards her, touched her on the arm. The Blind Girl

'Look into my face, Dear heart, Sweet heart!' said Bertha. 'Read it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me if the

The Blind Girl still, upturning the blank sightless face, down which the tears were coursing fast, addressed

'There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not for your good, bright May! There is not, in my soul, a

grateful recollection stronger than the deep remembrance which is stored there, of the many many times

when, in the full pride of sight and beauty, you have had consideration for Blind Bertha, even when we two

were children, or when Bertha was as much a child as ever blindness can be! Every blessing on your head!

Light upon your happy course! Not the less, my dear May;' and she drew towards her, in a closer grasp; 'not

the less, my bird, because, today, the knowledge that you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost to

breaking! Father, May, Mary! oh forgive me that it is so, for the sake of all he has done to relieve the

weariness of my dark life: and for the sake of the belief you have in me, when I call Heaven to witness that I

While speaking, she had released May Fielding's hands, and clasped her garments in an attitude of mingled

supplication and love. Sinking lower and lower down, as she proceeded in her strange confession, she

dropped at last at the feet of her friend, and hid her blind face in the folds of her dress.

'Great Power!' exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the truth, 'have I deceived her from the cradle,

It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, busy little Dot for such she was, whatever faults

she had, and however you may learn to hate her, in good time it was well for all of them, I say, that she was

there: or where this would have ended, it were hard to tell. But Dot, recovering her selfpossession,

'Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me! Give her your arm, May. So! How composed she is, you see,

already; and how good it is of her to mind us,' said the cheery little woman, kissing her upon the forehead.

'Come away, dear Bertha. Come! and here's her good father will come with her; won't you, Caleb? To be

Well, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it must have been an obdurate nature that could have

withstood her influence. When she had got poor Caleb and his Bertha away, that they might comfort and

console each other, as she knew they only could, she presently came bouncing back, the saying is, as fresh

as any daisy; I say fresher to mount guard over that bridling little piece of consequence in the cap and

'So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly,' said she, drawing a chair to the fire; 'and while I have it in my lap,

here's Mrs. Fielding, Tilly, will tell me all about the management of Babies, and put me right in twenty points

Not even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the popular expression, was so 'slow' as to perform a fatal

surgical operation upon himself, in emulation of a jugglingtrick achieved by his arch enemy at

breakfasttime; not even he fell half so readily into the snare prepared for him, as the old lady did into this

artful pitfall. The fact of Tackleton having walked out; and furthermore, of two or three people having been

talking together at a distance, for two minutes, leaving her to her own resources; was quite enough to have

put her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that mysterious convulsion in the Indigo trade, for

fourandtwenty hours. But this becoming deference to her experience, on the part of the young mother, was

so irresistible, that after a short affectation of humility, she began to enlighten her with the best grace in the

world; and sitting bolt upright before the wicked Dot, she did, in half an hour, deliver more infallible

domestic recipes and precepts, than would (if acted on) have utterly destroyed and done up that Young

To change the theme, Dot did a little needlework she carried the contents of a whole workbox in her

pocket; however she contrived it, I don't know then did a little nursing; then a little more needlework; then

had a little whispering chat with May, while the old lady dozed; and so in little bits of bustle, which was quite

her manner always, found it a very short afternoon. Then, as it grew dark, and as it was a solemn part of this

Institution of the PicNic that she should perform all Bertha's household tasks, she trimmed the fire, and

swept the hearth, and set the teaboard out, and drew the curtain, and lighted a candle. Then she played an air

or two on a rude kind of harp, which Caleb had contrived for Bertha, and played them very well; for Nature

had made her delicate little ear as choice a one for music as it would have been for jewels, if she had had any

to wear. By this time it was the established hour for having tea; and Tackleton came back again, to share the

Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and Caleb had sat down to his afternoon's work. But he

couldn't settle to it, poor fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his daughter. It was touching to see him

sitting idle on his workingstool, regarding her so wistfully, and always saying in his face, 'Have I deceived

When it was night, and tea was done, and Dot had nothing more to do in washing up the cups and saucers; in

a word for I must come to it, and there is no use in putting it off when the time drew nigh for expecting

the Carrier's return in every sound of distant wheels, her manner changed again, her colour came and went,

and she was very restless. Not as good wives are, when listening for their husbands. No, no, no. It was

Wheels heard. A horse's feet. The barking of a dog. The gradual approach of all the sounds. The scratching

'Whose step?' returned the Carrier, standing in the portal, with his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from

'She is not to be deceived,' observed the Carrier, laughing. 'Come along, sir. You'll be welcome, never fear!'

'He's not so much a stranger, that you haven't seen him once, Caleb,' said the Carrier. 'You'll give him

'He's the best company on earth, to talk secrets in,' said John. 'I have reasonable good lungs, but he tries 'em, I

When he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that amply corroborated what he had said about his lungs, he

added in his natural tone, 'A chair in the chimneycorner, and leave to sit quite silent and look pleasantly

Bertha had been listening intently. She called Caleb to her side, when he had set the chair, and asked him, in a

low voice, to describe their visitor. When he had done so (truly now; with scrupulous fidelity), she moved,

for the first time since he had come in, and sighed, and seemed to have no further interest concerning him.

The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was, and fonder of his little wife than ever.

'A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!' he said, encircling her with his rough arm, as she stood, removed

'He's ha ha ha! he's full of admiration for you!' said the Carrier. 'Talked of nothing else, the whole way

'I wish he had had a better subject, John,' she said, with an uneasy glance about the room. At Tackleton

'A better subject!' cried the jovial John. 'There's no such thing. Come, off with the greatcoat, off with the

thick shawl, off with the heavy wrappers! and a cosy halfhour by the fire! My humble service, Mistress. A

game at cribbage, you and I? That's hearty. The cards and board, Dot. And a glass of beer here, if there's any

His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accepting it with gracious readiness, they were soon

engaged upon the game. At first, the Carrier looked about him sometimes, with a smile, or now and then

called Dot to peep over his shoulder at his hand, and advise him on some knotty point. But his adversary

being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject to an occasional weakness in respect of pegging more than she was

entitled to, required such vigilance on his part, as left him neither eyes nor ears to spare. Thus, his whole

attention gradually became absorbed upon the cards; and he thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his

There was that in his pale face which made the other rise immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the

'Hush! John Peerybingle,' said Tackleton. 'I am sorry for this. I am indeed. I have been afraid of it. I have

The Carrier accompanied him, without another word. They went across a yard, where the stars were shining,

and by a little side door, into Tackleton's own countinghouse, where there was a glass window,

commanding the wareroom, which was closed for the night. There was no light in the countinghouse itself,

but there were lamps in the long narrow wareroom; and consequently the window was bright.

'A moment!' said Tackleton. 'Can you bear to look through that window, do you think?'

'A moment more,' said Tackleton. 'Don't commit any violence. It's of no use. It's dangerous too. You're a

The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as if he had been struck. In one stride he was at the

He saw her, with the old man old no longer, but erect and gallant bearing in his hand the false white hair

that had won his way into their desolate and miserable home. He saw her listening to him, as he bent his head

to whisper in her ear; and suffering him to clasp her round the waist, as they moved slowly down the dim

wooden gallery towards the door by which they had entered it. He saw them stop, and saw her turn to have

the face, the face he loved so, so presented to his view! and saw her, with her own hands, adjust the lie

He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would have beaten down a lion. But opening it immediately

again, he spread it out before the eyes of Tackleton (for he was tender of her, even then), and so, as they

He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse and parcels, when she came into the room, prepared

Could she kiss them? Could she be blithe and cheerful in her parting? Could she venture to reveal her face to

them without a blush? Yes. Tackleton observed her closely, and she did all this.

Tilly was hushing the Baby, and she crossed and recrossed Tackleton, a dozen times, repeating drowsily:

'Did the knowledge that it was to be its wifes, then, wring its hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers

'Now, Tilly, give me the Baby! Good night, Mr. Tackleton. Where's John, for goodness' sake?'

'He's going to walk beside the horse's head,' said Tackleton; who helped her to her seat.

The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in the affirmative; and the false stranger and the little

nurse being in their places, the old horse moved off. Boxer, the unconscious Boxer, running on before,

running back, running round and round the cart, and barking as triumphantly and merrily as ever.

When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May and her mother home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire

beside his daughter; anxious and remorseful at the core; and still saying in his wistful contemplation of her,

The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby, had all stopped, and run down, long ago. In the faint light

and silence, the imperturbably calm dolls, the agitated rockinghorses with distended eyes and nostrils, the

old gentlemen at the streetdoors, standing half doubled up upon their failing knees and ankles, the

wryfaced nutcrackers, the very Beasts upon their way into the Ark, in twos, like a Boarding School out

walking, might have been imagined to be stricken motionless with fantastic wonder, at Dot being false, or

THE Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten, when the Carrier sat down by his fireside. So troubled and

griefworn, that he seemed to scare the Cuckoo, who, having cut his ten melodious announcements as short

as possible, plunged back into the Moorish Palace again, and clapped his little door behind him, as if the

If the little Haymaker had been armed with the sharpest of scythes, and had cut at every stroke into the

It was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and held together by innumerable threads of winning

remembrance, spun from the daily working of her many qualities of endearment; it was a heart in which she

had enshrined herself so gently and so closely; a heart so single and so earnest in its Truth, so strong in right,

so weak in wrong; that it could cherish neither passion nor revenge at first, and had only room to hold the

But, slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on his hearth, now cold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts

began to rise within him, as an angry wind comes rising in the night. The Stranger was beneath his outraged

roof. Three steps would take him to his chamberdoor. One blow would beat it in. 'You might do murder

before you know it,' Tackleton had said. How could it be murder, if he gave the villain time to grapple with

It was an illtimed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to some

avenging act, that should change the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely travellers would dread

to pass by night; and where the timid would see shadows struggling in the ruined windows when the moon

He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who had won the heart that HE had never touched. Some

lover of her early choice, of whom she had thought and dreamed, for whom she had pined and pined, when he

She had been abovestairs with the Baby, getting it to bed. As he sat brooding on the hearth, she came close

beside him, without his knowledge in the turning of the rack of his great misery, he lost all other sounds

and put her little stool at his feet. He only knew it, when he felt her hand upon his own, and saw her looking

With wonder? No. It was his first impression, and he was fain to look at her again, to set it right. No, not with

wonder. With an eager and inquiring look; but not with wonder. At first it was alarmed and serious; then, it

changed into a strange, wild, dreadful smile of recognition of his thoughts; then, there was nothing but her

Though the power of Omnipotence had been his to wield at that moment, he had too much of its diviner

property of Mercy in his breast, to have turned one feather's weight of it against her. But he could not bear to

see her crouching down upon the little seat where he had often looked on her, with love and pride, so

innocent and gay; and, when she rose and left him, sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to have the vacant

place beside him rather than her so longcherished presence. This in itself was anguish keener than all,

reminding him how desolate he was become, and how the great bond of his life was rent asunder.

The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could have better borne to see her lying prematurely dead

before him with their little child upon her breast, the higher and the stronger rose his wrath against his enemy.

There was a gun, hanging on the wall. He took it down, and moved a pace or two towards the door of the

perfidious Stranger's room. He knew the gun was loaded. Some shadowy idea that it was just to shoot this

man like a wild beast, seized him, and dilated in his mind until it grew into a monstrous demon in complete

possession of him, casting out all milder thoughts and setting up its undivided empire.

That phrase is wrong. Not casting out his milder thoughts, but artfully transforming them. Changing them

into scourges to drive him on. Turning water into blood, love into hate, gentleness into blind ferocity. Her

image, sorrowing, humbled, but still pleading to his tenderness and mercy with resistless power, never left his

mind; but, staying there, it urged him to the door; raised the weapon to his shoulder; fitted and nerved his

He reversed the gun to beat the stock up the door; he already held it lifted in the air; some indistinct design

When, suddenly, the struggling fire illumined the whole chimney with a glow of light; and the Cricket on the

No sound he could have heard, no human voice, not even hers, could so have moved and softened him. The

artless words in which she had told him of her love for this same Cricket, were once more freshly spoken; her

trembling, earnest manner at the moment, was again before him; her pleasant voice O what a voice it was,

for making household music at the fireside of an honest man! thrilled through and through his better nature,

He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep, awakened from a frightful dream; and put the gun

aside. Clasping his hands before his face, he then sat down again beside the fire, and found relief in tears.

The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and stood in Fairy shape before him.

'"I love it,"' said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he well remembered, '"for the many times I have heard it,

'It has been, Heaven knows,' returned the Carrier. 'She made it happy, always, until now.'

'So gracefully sweettempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, and lighthearted!' said the Voice.

The Carrier repeated 'as I did.' But not firmly. His faltering tongue resisted his control, and would speak in its

'The hearth she has how often! blessed and brightened,' said the Cricket; 'the hearth which, but for her,

were only a few stones and bricks and rusty bars, but which has been, through her, the Altar of your Home;

on which you have nightly sacrificed some petty passion, selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a

tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that the smoke from this poor chimney has gone

upward with a better fragrance than the richest incense that is burnt before the richest shrines in all the gaudy

temples of this world! Upon your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; surrounded by its gentle influences and

associations; hear her! Hear me! Hear everything that speaks the language of your hearth and home!'

'All things that speak the language of your hearth and home, must plead for her!' returned the Cricket. 'For

And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, continued to sit meditating in his chair, the Presence

stood beside him, suggesting his reflections by its power, and presenting them before him, as in a glass or

picture. It was not a solitary Presence. From the hearthstone, from the chimney, from the clock, the pipe, the

kettle, and the cradle; from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs; from the cart without, and the

cupboard within, and the household implements; from every thing and every place with which she had ever

been familiar, and with which she had ever entwined one recollection of herself in her unhappy husband's

mind; Fairies came trooping forth. Not to stand beside him as the Cricket did, but to busy and bestir

themselves. To do all honour to her image. To pull him by the skirts, and point to it when it appeared. To

cluster round it, and embrace it, and strew flowers for it to tread on. To try to crown its fair head with their

tiny hands. To show that they were fond of it and loved it; and that there was not one ugly, wicked or

accusatory creature to claim knowledge of it none but their playful and approving selves.

She sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing to herself. Such a blithe, thriving, steady little Dot! The

fairy figures turned upon him all at once, by one consent, with one prodigious concentrated stare, and seemed

There were sounds of gaiety outside, musical instruments, and noisy tongues, and laughter. A crowd of young

merrymakers came pouring in, among whom were May Fielding and a score of pretty girls. Dot was the

fairest of them all; as young as any of them too. They came to summon her to join their party. It was a dance.

If ever little foot were made for dancing, hers was, surely. But she laughed, and shook her head, and pointed

to her cookery on the fire, and her table ready spread: with an exulting defiance that rendered her more

charming than she was before. And so she merrily dismissed them, nodding to her wouldbe partners, one by

one, as they passed, but with a comical indifference, enough to make them go and drown themselves

immediately if they were her admirers and they must have been so, more or less; they couldn't help it. And

yet indifference was not her character. O no! For presently, there came a certain Carrier to the door; and bless

Again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and seemed to say, 'Is this the wife who has forsaken

A shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture: call it what you will. A great shadow of the Stranger, as he first

stood underneath their roof; covering its surface, and blotting out all other objects. But the nimble Fairies

worked like bees to clear it off again. And Dot again was there. Still bright and beautiful.

Rocking her little Baby in its cradle, singing to it softly, and resting her head upon a shoulder which had its

The night I mean the real night: not going by Fairy clocks was wearing now; and in this stage of the

Carrier's thoughts, the moon burst out, and shone brightly in the sky. Perhaps some calm and quiet light had

Although the shadow of the Stranger fell at intervals upon the glass always distinct, and big, and

thoroughly defined it never fell so darkly as at first. Whenever it appeared, the Fairies uttered a general cry

of consternation, and plied their little arms and legs, with inconceivable activity, to rub it out. And whenever

they got at Dot again, and showed her to him once more, bright and beautiful, they cheered in the most

They never showed her, otherwise than beautiful and bright, for they were Household Spirits to whom

falsehood is annihilation; and being so, what Dot was there for them, but the one active, beaming, pleasant

The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed her, with the Baby, gossiping among a knot of sage

old matrons, and affecting to be wondrous old and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid, demure old way

upon her husband's arm, attempting she! such a bud of a little woman to convey the idea of having

abjured the vanities of the world in general, and of being the sort of person to whom it was no novelty at all

to be a mother; yet in the same breath, they showed her, laughing at the Carrier for being awkward, and

pulling up his shirtcollar to make him smart, and mincing merrily about that very room to teach him how to

They turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed her with the Blind Girl; for, though she carried

cheerfulness and animation with her wheresoever she went, she bore those influences into Caleb Plummer's

home, heaped up and running over. The Blind Girl's love for her, and trust in her, and gratitude to her; her

own good busy way of setting Bertha's thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for filling up each moment of the

visit in doing something useful to the house, and really working hard while feigning to make holiday; her

bountiful provision of those standing delicacies, the Veal and HamPie and the bottles of Beer; her radiant

little face arriving at the door, and taking leave; the wonderful expression in her whole self, from her neat

foot to the crown of her head, of being a part of the establishment a something necessary to it, which it

couldn't be without; all this the Fairies revelled in, and loved her for. And once again they looked upon him

all at once, appealingly, and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in her dress and fondled her, 'Is

More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful night, they showed her to him sitting on her

favourite seat, with her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow, her falling hair. As he had seen her last.

And when they found her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him, but gathered close round her, and

comforted and kissed her, and pressed on one another to show sympathy and kindness to her, and forgot him

Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the stars grew pale; the cold day broke; the sun rose. The

Carrier still sat, musing, in the chimney corner. He had sat there, with his head upon his hands, all night. All

night the faithful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on the Hearth. All night he had listened to its

voice. All night the household Fairies had been busy with him. All night she had been amiable and blameless

He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed himself. He couldn't go about his customary

cheerful avocations he wanted spirit for them but it mattered the less, that it was Tackleton's

weddingday, and he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy. He thought to have gone merrily to church

with Dot. But such plans were at an end. It was their own weddingday too. Ah! how little he had looked for

The Carrier had expected that Tackleton would pay him an early visit; and he was right. He had not walked to

and fro before his own door, many minutes, when he saw the Toymerchant coming in his chaise along the

road. As the chaise drew nearer, he perceived that Tackleton was dressed out sprucely for his marriage, and

The horse looked much more like a bridegroom than Tackleton, whose halfclosed eye was more

disagreeably expressive than ever. But the Carrier took little heed of this. His thoughts had other occupation.

'John Peerybingle!' said Tackleton, with an air of condolence. 'My good fellow, how do you find yourself this

'I have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton,' returned the Carrier, shaking his head: 'for I have been a good

deal disturbed in my mind. But it's over now! Can you spare me half an hour or so, for some private talk?'

'I came on purpose,' returned Tackleton, alighting. 'Never mind the horse. He'll stand quiet enough, with the

The Carrier having brought it from his stable, and set it before him, they turned into the house.

When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rapping at the Stranger's door; which was only removed

from it by a few steps. One of her very red eyes (for Tilly had been crying all night long, because her mistress

cried) was at the keyhole; and she was knocking very loud; and seemed frightened.

'If you please I can't make nobody hear,' said Tilly, looking round. 'I hope nobody an't gone and been and

This philanthropic wish, Miss Slowboy emphasised with various new raps and kicks at the door; which led to

The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed to him to go if he would.

So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy's relief; and he too kicked and knocked; and he too failed to get the least

reply. But he thought of trying the handle of the door; and as it opened easily, he peeped in, looked in, went

'John Peerybingle,' said Tackleton, in his ear. 'I hope there has been nothing nothing rash in the night?'

'Because he's gone!' said Tackleton; 'and the window's open. I don't see any marks to be sure it's almost on

a level with the garden: but I was afraid there might have been some some scuffle. Eh?'

He nearly shut up the expressive eye altogether; he looked at him so hard. And he gave his eye, and his face,

and his whole person, a sharp twist. As if he would have screwed the truth out of him.

'Make yourself easy,' said the Carrier. 'He went into that room last night, without harm in word or deed from

me, and no one has entered it since. He is away of his own free will. I'd go out gladly at that door, and beg

my bread from house to house, for life, if I could so change the past that he had never come. But he has come

The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too, and shaded his face with his hand, for some little

'You showed me last night,' he said at length, 'my wife; my wife that I love; secretly '

'Conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him opportunities of meeting her alone. I think there's no sight I

wouldn't have rather seen than that. I think there's no man in the world I wouldn't have rather had to show it

'I confess to having had my suspicions always,' said Tackleton. 'And that has made me objectionable here, I

'But as you did show it me,' pursued the Carrier, not minding him; 'and as you saw her, my wife, my wife that

I love' his voice, and eye, and hand, grew steadier and firmer as he repeated these words: evidently in

pursuance of a steadfast purpose 'as you saw her at this disadvantage, it is right and just that you should

also see with my eyes, and look into my breast, and know what my mind is, upon the subject. For it's settled,'

Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about its being necessary to vindicate something or other;

but he was overawed by the manner of his companion. Plain and unpolished as it was, it had a something

dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the soul of generous honour dwelling in the man could have

'I am a plain, rough man,' pursued the Carrier, 'with very little to recommend me. I am not a clever man, as

you very well know. I am not a young man. I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her grow up, from a

child, in her father's house; because I knew how precious she was; because she had been my life, for years

and years. There's many men I can't compare with, who never could have loved my little Dot like me, I

He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot, before resuming.

'I often thought that though I wasn't good enough for her, I should make her a kind husband, and perhaps

know her value better than another; and in this way I reconciled it to myself, and came to think it might be

possible that we should be married. And in the end it came about, and we were married.'

'I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself; I knew how much I loved her, and how happy I should

be,' pursued the Carrier. 'But I had not I feel it now sufficiently considered her.'

'To be sure,' said Tackleton. 'Giddiness, frivolity, fickleness, love of admiration! Not considered! All left out

'You had best not interrupt me,' said the Carrier, with some sternness, 'till you understand me; and you're

wide of doing so. If, yesterday, I'd have struck that man down at a blow, who dared to breathe a word against

'Did I consider,' said the Carrier, 'that I took her at her age, and with her beauty from her young

companions, and the many scenes of which she was the ornament; in which she was the brightest little star

that ever shone, to shut her up from day to day in my dull house, and keep my tedious company? Did I

consider how little suited I was to her sprightly humour, and how wearisome a plodding man like me must

be, to one of her quick spirit? Did I consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I loved her, when

everybody must, who knew her? Never. I took advantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition;

The Toymerchant gazed at him, without winking. Even the halfshut eye was open now.

'Heaven bless her!' said the Carrier, 'for the cheerful constancy with which she tried to keep the knowledge of

this from me! And Heaven help me, that, in my slow mind, I have not found it out before! Poor child! Poor

Dot! I not to find it out, who have seen her eyes fill with tears, when such a marriage as our own was spoken

of! I, who have seen the secret trembling on her lips a hundred times, and never suspected it till last night!

Poor girl! That I could ever hope she would be fond of me! That I could ever believe she was!'

'She made a show of it,' said Tackleton. 'She made such a show of it, that to tell you the truth it was the origin

And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who certainly made no sort of show of being fond of

'She has tried,' said the poor Carrier, with greater emotion than he had exhibited yet; 'I only now begin to

know how hard she has tried, to be my dutiful and zealous wife. How good she has been; how much she has

done; how brave and strong a heart she has; let the happiness I have known under this roof bear witness! It

'Here alone?' said Tackleton. 'Oh! Then you do mean to take some notice of this?'

'I mean,' returned the Carrier, 'to do her the greatest kindness, and make her the best reparation, in my power.

I can release her from the daily pain of an unequal marriage, and the struggle to conceal it. She shall be as

'Make HER reparation!' exclaimed Tackleton, twisting and turning his great ears with his hands. 'There must

The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the Toymerchant, and shook him like a reed.

'Listen to me!' he said. 'And take care that you hear me right. Listen to me. Do I speak plainly?'

'I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night,' exclaimed the Carrier. 'On the spot where she has often sat beside

me, with her sweet face looking into mine. I called up her whole life, day by day. I had her dear self, in its

every passage, in review before me. And upon my soul she is innocent, if there is One to judge the innocent

'Passion and distrust have left me!' said the Carrier; 'and nothing but my grief remains. In an unhappy

moment some old lover, better suited to her tastes and years than I; forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her

will; returned. In an unhappy moment, taken by surprise, and wanting time to think of what she did, she made

herself a party to his treachery, by concealing it. Last night she saw him, in the interview we witnessed. It

'So, let her go!' pursued the Carrier. 'Go, with my blessing for the many happy hours she has given me, and

my forgiveness for any pang she has caused me. Let her go, and have the peace of mind I wish her! She'll

never hate me. She'll learn to like me better, when I'm not a drag upon her, and she wears the chain I have

riveted, more lightly. This is the day on which I took her, with so little thought for her enjoyment, from her

home. Today she shall return to it, and I will trouble her no more. Her father and mother will be here today

we had made a little plan for keeping it together and they shall take her home. I can trust her, there, or

anywhere. She leaves me without blame, and she will live so I am sure. If I should die I may perhaps while

she is still young; I have lost some courage in a few hours she'll find that I remembered her, and loved her

'O no, John, not over. Do not say it's over yet! Not quite yet. I have heard your noble words. I could not steal

away, pretending to be ignorant of what has affected me with such deep gratitude. Do not say it's over, 'till

She had entered shortly after Tackleton, and had remained there. She never looked at Tackleton, but fixed her

eyes upon her husband. But she kept away from him, setting as wide a space as possible between them; and

though she spoke with most impassioned earnestness, she went no nearer to him even then. How different in

'No hand can make the clock which will strike again for me the hours that are gone,' replied the Carrier, with

a faint smile. 'But let it be so, if you will, my dear. It will strike soon. It's of little matter what we say. I'd try

'Well!' muttered Tackleton. 'I must be off, for when the clock strikes again, it'll be necessary for me to be

upon my way to church. Good morning, John Peerybingle. I'm sorry to be deprived of the pleasure of your

'Why, if you compel me to make the observation,' said Tackleton, previously taking the precaution of getting

into his chaise; 'I must say that it was so very unexpected, that I'm far from being likely to forget it.'

'I wish I could give it to YOU,' said Tackleton. 'As I can't; thank'ee. Between ourselves, (as I told you before,

eh?) I don't much think I shall have the less joy in my married life, because May hasn't been too officious

The Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in the distance than his horse's flowers and favours

near at hand; and then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a restless, broken man, among some neighbouring

His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how

good he was, how excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and

'Ow if you please don't!' said Tilly. 'It's enough to dead and bury the Baby, so it is if you please.'

'Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, Tilly,' inquired her mistress, drying her eyes; 'when I can't

'Ow if you please don't!' cried Tilly, throwing back her head, and bursting out into a howl she looked at the

moment uncommonly like Boxer. 'Ow if you please don't! Ow, what has everybody gone and been and done

The softhearted Slowboy trailed off at this juncture, into such a deplorable howl, the more tremendous from

its long suppression, that she must infallibly have awakened the Baby, and frightened him into something

serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not encountered Caleb Plummer, leading in his daughter. This

spectacle restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, she stood for some few moments silent, with her mouth

wide open; and then, posting off to the bed on which the Baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, Saint Vitus

manner on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among the bedclothes,

'I told her you would not be there, mum,' whispered Caleb. 'I heard as much last night. But bless you,' said the

little man, taking her tenderly by both hands, 'I don't care for what they say. I don't believe them. There an't

much of me, but that little should be torn to pieces sooner than I'd trust a word against you!'

He put his arms about her and hugged her, as a child might have hugged one of his own dolls.

'Bertha couldn't stay at home this morning,' said Caleb. 'She was afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, and

couldn't trust herself to be so near them on their weddingday. So we started in good time, and came here. I

have been thinking of what I have done,' said Caleb, after a moment's pause; 'I have been blaming myself till

I hardly knew what to do or where to turn, for the distress of mind I have caused her; and I've come to the

conclusion that I'd better, if you'll stay with me, mum, the while, tell her the truth. You'll stay with me the

while?' he inquired, trembling from head to foot. 'I don't know what effect it may have upon her; I don't know

what she'll think of me; I don't know that she'll ever care for her poor father afterwards. But it's best for her

' Mary,' said Bertha, 'where is your hand! Ah! Here it is here it is!' pressing it to her lips, with a smile, and

drawing it through her arm. 'I heard them speaking softly among themselves, last night, of some blame

'I knew it!' cried Bertha, proudly. 'I told them so. I scorned to hear a word! Blame HER with justice!' she

pressed the hand between her own, and the soft cheek against her face. 'No! I am not so blind as that.'

Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained upon the other: holding her hand.

'I know you all,' said Bertha, 'better than you think. But none so well as her. Not even you, father. There is

nothing half so real and so true about me, as she is. If I could be restored to sight this instant, and not a word

'Bertha, my dear!' said Caleb, 'I have something on my mind I want to tell you, while we three are alone. Hear

'I have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my child,' said Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his

bewildered face. 'I have wandered from the truth, intending to be kind to you; and have been cruel.'

'He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha,' said Dot. 'You'll say so, presently. You'll be the first to tell him so.'

'Not meaning it, my child,' said Caleb. 'But I have been; though I never suspected it, till yesterday. My dear

blind daughter, hear me and forgive me! The world you live in, heart of mine, doesn't exist as I have

She turned her wonderstricken face towards him still; but drew back, and clung closer to her friend.

'Your road in life was rough, my poor one,' said Caleb, 'and I meant to smooth it for you. I have altered

objects, changed the characters of people, invented many things that never have been, to make you happier. I

have had concealments from you, put deceptions on you, God forgive me! and surrounded you with fancies.'

'But living people are not fancies!' she said hurriedly, and turning very pale, and still retiring from him. 'You

'I have done so, Bertha,' pleaded Caleb. 'There is one person that you know, my dove '

'Oh father! why do you say, I know?' she answered, in a term of keen reproach. 'What and whom do I know! I

In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, as if she were groping her way; then spread them, in a

'The marriage that takes place today,' said Caleb, 'is with a stern, sordid, grinding man. A hard master to you

and me, my dear, for many years. Ugly in his looks, and in his nature. Cold and callous always. Unlike what I

'Oh why,' cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed, almost beyond endurance, 'why did you ever do this!

Why did you ever fill my heart so full, and then come in like Death, and tear away the objects of my love! O

Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his penitence and sorrow.

She had been but a short time in this passion of regret, when the Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by all but her,

began to chirp. Not merrily, but in a low, faint, sorrowing way. It was so mournful that her tears began to

flow; and when the Presence which had been beside the Carrier all night, appeared behind her, pointing to her

She heard the Cricketvoice more plainly soon, and was conscious, through her blindness, of the Presence

'It is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare indeed. The house will scarcely keep out wind and rain another

winter. It is as roughly shielded from the weather, Bertha,' Dot continued in a low, clear voice, 'as your poor

The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Carrier's little wife aside.

'Those presents that I took such care of; that came almost at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me,' she

Dot saw she knew, already, and was silent. The Blind Girl spread her hands before her face again. But in

'Dear Mary, a moment. One moment? More this way. Speak softly to me. You are true, I know. You'd not

'No, I am sure you would not. You have too much pity for me. Mary, look across the room to where we were

just now to where my father is my father, so compassionate and loving to me and tell me what you see.'

'I see,' said Dot, who understood her well, 'an old man sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back,

'He is an old man, worn with care and work. He is a spare, dejected, thoughtful, greyhaired man. I see him

now, despondent and bowed down, and striving against nothing. But, Bertha, I have seen him many times

before, and striving hard in many ways for one great sacred object. And I honour his grey head, and bless

The Blind Girl broke away from her; and throwing herself upon her knees before him, took the grey head to

'It is my sight restored. It is my sight!' she cried. 'I have been blind, and now my eyes are open. I never knew

him! To think I might have died, and never truly seen the father who has been so loving to me!'

'There is not a gallant figure on this earth,' exclaimed the Blind Girl, holding him in her embrace, 'that I

would love so dearly, and would cherish so devotedly, as this! The greyer, and more worn, the dearer, father!

Never let them say I am blind again. There's not a furrow in his face, there's not a hair upon his head, that

'And in my blindness, I believed him,' said the girl, caressing him with tears of exquisite affection, 'to be so

different! And having him beside me, day by day, so mindful of me always, never dreamed of this!'

'The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha,' said poor Caleb. 'He's gone!'

'Nothing is gone,' she answered. 'Dearest father, no! Everything is here in you. The father that I loved so

well; the father that I never loved enough, and never knew; the benefactor whom I first began to reverence

and love, because he had such sympathy for me; All are here in you. Nothing is dead to me. The soul of all

that was most dear to me is here here, with the worn face, and the grey head. And I am NOT blind, father,

Dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during this discourse, upon the father and daughter; but looking,

now, towards the little Haymaker in the Moorish meadow, she saw that the clock was within a few minutes of

'There is no change in HER. You never told me anything of HER that was not true?'

'I should have done it, my dear, I am afraid,' returned Caleb, 'if I could have made her better than she was.

But I must have changed her for the worse, if I had changed her at all. Nothing could improve her, Bertha.'

Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked the question, her delight and pride in the reply and her

'More changes than you think for, may happen though, my dear,' said Dot. 'Changes for the better, I mean;

changes for great joy to some of us. You mustn't let them startle you too much, if any such should ever

happen, and affect you? Are those wheels upon the road? You've a quick ear, Bertha. Are they wheels?'

'I I I know you have a quick ear,' said Dot, placing her hand upon her heart, and evidently talking on, as

fast as she could to hide its palpitating state, 'because I have noticed it often, and because you were so quick

to find out that strange step last night. Though why you should have said, as I very well recollect you did say,

Bertha, "Whose step is that!" and why you should have taken any greater observation of it than of any other

step, I don't know. Though as I said just now, there are great changes in the world: great changes: and we

Caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she spoke to him, no less than to his daughter. He saw her,

with astonishment, so fluttered and distressed that she could scarcely breathe; and holding to a chair, to save

'They are wheels indeed!' she panted. 'Coming nearer! Nearer! Very close! And now you hear them stopping

at the gardengate! And now you hear a step outside the door the same step, Bertha, is it not! and now!'

She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and running up to Caleb put her hands upon his eyes, as a

young man rushed into the room, and flinging away his hat into the air, came sweeping down upon them.

'Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you ever hear the like of it before?' cried Dot.

'He is alive!' shrieked Dot, removing her hands from his eyes, and clapping them in ecstasy; 'look at him! See

where he stands before you, healthy and strong! Your own dear son! Your own dear living, loving brother,

All honour to the little creature for her transports! All honour to her tears and laughter, when the three were

locked in one another's arms! All honour to the heartiness with which she met the sunburnt sailorfellow,

with his dark streaming hair, halfway, and never turned her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss

And honour to the Cuckoo too why not! for bursting out of the trapdoor in the Moorish Palace like a

housebreaker, and hiccoughing twelve times on the assembled company, as if he had got drunk for joy!

The Carrier, entering, started back. And well he might, to find himself in such good company.

'Look, John!' said Caleb, exultingly, 'look here! My own boy from the Golden South Americas! My own son!

Him that you fitted out, and sent away yourself! Him that you were always such a friend to!'

The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, recoiling, as some feature in his face awakened a

'Now tell him all!' cried Dot. 'Tell him all, Edward; and don't spare me, for nothing shall make me spare

'And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your old friend?' rejoined the Carrier. 'There was a frank

boy once how many years is it, Caleb, since we heard that he was dead, and had it proved, we thought?

'There was a generous friend of mine, once; more a father to me than a friend;' said Edward, 'who never

would have judged me, or any other man, unheard. You were he. So I am certain you will hear me now.'

The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept far away from him, replied, 'Well! that's but fair. I

'You must know that when I left here, a boy,' said Edward, 'I was in love, and my love was returned. She was

a very young girl, who perhaps (you may tell me) didn't know her own mind. But I knew mine, and I had a

'Indeed I had,' returned the other. 'And she returned it. I have ever since believed she did, and now I am sure

'Constant to her,' said Edward, 'and returning, full of hope, after many hardships and perils, to redeem my part

of our old contract, I heard, twenty miles away, that she was false to me; that she had forgotten me; and had

bestowed herself upon another and a richer man. I had no mind to reproach her; but I wished to see her, and

to prove beyond dispute that this was true. I hoped she might have been forced into it, against her own desire

and recollection. It would be small comfort, but it would be some, I thought, and on I came. That I might

have the truth, the real truth; observing freely for myself, and judging for myself, without obstruction on the

one hand, or presenting my own influence (if I had any) before her, on the other; I dressed myself unlike

myself you know how; and waited on the road you know where. You had no suspicion of me; neither had

had she,' pointing to Dot, 'until I whispered in her ear at that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me.'

'But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had come back,' sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself, as she

had burned to do, all through this narrative; 'and when she knew his purpose, she advised him by all means to

keep his secret close; for his old friend John Peerybingle was much too open in his nature, and too clumsy in

all artifice being a clumsy man in general,' said Dot, half laughing and half crying 'to keep it for him. And

when she that's me, John,' sobbed the little woman 'told him all, and how his sweetheart had believed him

to be dead; and how she had at last been overpersuaded by her mother into a marriage which the silly, dear

old thing called advantageous; and when she that's me again, John told him they were not yet married

(though close upon it), and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for there was no love on her

side; and when he went nearly mad with joy to hear it; then she that's me again said she would go

between them, as she had often done before in old times, John, and would sound his sweetheart and be sure

that what she me again, John said and thought was right. And it was right, John! And they were brought

together, John! And they were married, John, an hour ago! And here's the Bride! And Gruff and Tackleton

She was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to the purpose; and never so completely irresistible as

in her present transports. There never were congratulations so endearing and delicious, as those she lavished

Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest Carrier had stood, confounded. Flying, now, towards

'No, John, no! Hear all! Don't love me any more, John, till you've heard every word I have to say. It was

wrong to have a secret from you, John. I'm very sorry I didn't think it any harm, till I came and sat down by

you on the little stool last night. But when I knew by what was written in your face, that you had seen me

walking in the gallery with Edward, and when I knew what you thought, I felt how giddy and how wrong it

Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peerybingle would have caught her in his arms. But no; she

'Don't love me yet, please, John! Not for a long time yet! When I was sad about this intended marriage, dear,

it was because I remembered May and Edward such young lovers; and knew that her heart was far away from

'No; keep there, please, John! When I laugh at you, as I sometimes do, John, and call you clumsy and a dear

old goose, and names of that sort, it's because I love you, John, so well, and take such pleasure in your ways,

and wouldn't see you altered in the least respect to have you made a King tomorrow.'

'And when I speak of people being middleaged, and steady, John, and pretend that we are a humdrum

couple, going on in a jogtrot sort of way, it's only because I'm such a silly little thing, John, that I like,

She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. But she was very nearly too late.

'No, don't love me for another minute or two, if you please, John! What I want most to tell you, I have kept to

the last. My dear, good, generous John, when we were talking the other night about the Cricket, I had it on

my lips to say, that at first I did not love you quite so dearly as I do now; that when I first came home here, I

was half afraid I mightn't learn to love you every bit as well as I hoped and prayed I might being so very

young, John! But, dear John, every day and hour I loved you more and more. And if I could have loved you

better than I do, the noble words I heard you say this morning, would have made me. But I can't. All the

affection that I had (it was a great deal, John) I gave you, as you well deserve, long, long ago, and I have no

more left to give. Now, my dear husband, take me to your heart again! That's my home, John; and never,

You never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious little woman in the arms of a third party, as you

would have felt if you had seen Dot run into the Carrier's embrace. It was the most complete, unmitigated,

You maybe sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect rapture; and you may be sure Dot was likewise; and you

may be sure they all were, inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and wishing to include

her young charge in the general interchange of congratulations, handed round the Baby to everybody in

But, now, the sound of wheels was heard again outside the door; and somebody exclaimed that Gruff and

Tackleton was coming back. Speedily that worthy gentleman appeared, looking warm and flustered.

'Why, what the Devil's this, John Peerybingle!' said Tackleton. 'There's some mistake. I appointed Mrs.

Tackleton to meet me at the church, and I'll swear I passed her on the road, on her way here. Oh! here she is!

I beg your pardon, sir; I haven't the pleasure of knowing you; but if you can do me the favour to spare this

'I mean, that as I can make allowance for your being vexed,' returned the other, with a smile, 'I am as deaf to

'I am sorry, sir,' said Edward, holding out May's left hand, and especially the third finger; 'that the young lady

can't accompany you to church; but as she has been there once, this morning, perhaps you'll excuse her.'

Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a little piece of silverpaper, apparently containing a ring,

'Miss Slowboy,' said Tackleton. 'Will you have the kindness to throw that in the fire? Thank'ee.'

'It was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, that prevented my wife from keeping her

'Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge that I revealed it to him faithfully; and that I told him,

'Oh certainly!' said Tackleton. 'Oh to be sure. Oh it's all right. It's quite correct. Mrs. Edward Plummer, I

'Ah, I shouldn't have known you, sir,' said Tackleton, scrutinising his face narrowly, and making a low bow. 'I

'Mrs. Peerybingle,' said Tackleton, turning suddenly to where she stood with her husband; 'I am sorry. You

haven't done me a very great kindness, but, upon my life I am sorry. You are better than I thought you. John

Peerybingle, I am sorry. You understand me; that's enough. It's quite correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and

With these words he carried it off, and carried himself off too: merely stopping at the door, to take the

flowers and favours from his horse's head, and to kick that animal once, in the ribs, as a means of informing

Of course it became a serious duty now, to make such a day of it, as should mark these events for a high Feast

and Festival in the Peerybingle Calendar for evermore. Accordingly, Dot went to work to produce such an

entertainment, as should reflect undying honour on the house and on every one concerned; and in a very short

space of time, she was up to her dimpled elbows in flour, and whitening the Carrier's coat, every time he

came near her, by stopping him to give him a kiss. That good fellow washed the greens, and peeled the

turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made himself useful in all

sorts of ways: while a couple of professional assistants, hastily called in from somewhere in the

neighbourhood, as on a point of life or death, ran against each other in all the doorways and round all the

corners, and everybody tumbled over Tilly Slowboy and the Baby, everywhere. Tilly never came out in such

force before. Her ubiquity was the theme of general admiration. She was a stumblingblock in the passage at

fiveandtwenty minutes past two; a mantrap in the kitchen at halfpast two precisely; and a pitfall in the

garret at fiveandtwenty minutes to three. The Baby's head was, as it were, a test and touchstone for every

description of matter, animal, vegetable, and mineral. Nothing was in use that day that didn't come, at some

Then, there was a great Expedition set on foot to go and find out Mrs. Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to

that excellent gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by force, if needful, to be happy and forgiving. And when

the Expedition first discovered her, she would listen to no terms at all, but said, an unspeakable number of

times, that ever she should have lived to see the day! and couldn't be got to say anything else, except, 'Now

carry me to the grave:' which seemed absurd, on account of her not being dead, or anything at all like it. After

a time, she lapsed into a state of dreadful calmness, and observed, that when that unfortunate train of

circumstances had occurred in the Indigo Trade, she had foreseen that she would be exposed, during her

whole life, to every species of insult and contumely; and that she was glad to find it was the case; and begged

they wouldn't trouble themselves about her, for what was she? oh, dear! a nobody! but would forget that

such a being lived, and would take their course in life without her. From this bitterly sarcastic mood, she

passed into an angry one, in which she gave vent to the remarkable expression that the worm would turn if

trodden on; and, after that, she yielded to a soft regret, and said, if they had only given her their confidence,

what might she not have had it in her power to suggest! Taking advantage of this crisis in her feelings, the

Expedition embraced her; and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on her way to John Peerybingle's in

a state of unimpeachable gentility; with a paper parcel at her side containing a cap of state, almost as tall, and

Then, there were Dot's father and mother to come, in another little chaise; and they were behind their time;

and fears were entertained; and there was much looking out for them down the road; and Mrs. Fielding

always would look in the wrong and morally impossible direction; and being apprised thereof, hoped she

might take the liberty of looking where she pleased. At last they came: a chubby little couple, jogging along

in a snug and comfortable little way that quite belonged to the Dot family; and Dot and her mother, side by

Then, Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with May's mother; and May's mother always stood on her

gentility; and Dot's mother never stood on anything but her active little feet. And old Dot so to call Dot's

father, I forgot it wasn't his right name, but never mind took liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and

seemed to think a cap but so much starch and muslin, and didn't defer himself at all to the Indigo Trade, but

said there was no help for it now; and, in Mrs. Fielding's summing up, was a good natured kind of man

I wouldn't have missed Dot, doing the honours in her weddinggown, my benison on her bright face! for any

money. No! nor the good Carrier, so jovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of the table. Nor the brown, fresh

sailorfellow, and his handsome wife. Nor any one among them. To have missed the dinner would have been

to miss as jolly and as stout a meal as man need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which they

After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl. As I'm a living man, hoping to keep so, for a

And, bytheby, a most unlookedfor incident occurred, just as he finished the last verse.

There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without saying with your leave, or by your leave,

with something heavy on his head. Setting this down in the middle of the table, symmetrically in the centre of

'Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and as he hasn't got no use for the cake himself, p'raps you'll eat it.'

There was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine. Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of infinite

discernment, suggested that the cake was poisoned, and related a narrative of a cake, which, within her

knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies, blue. But she was overruled by acclamation; and the cake

I don't think any one had tasted it, when there came another tap at the door, and the same man appeared

'Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few toys for the Babby. They ain't ugly.'

The whole party would have experienced great difficulty in finding words for their astonishment, even if they

had had ample time to seek them. But they had none at all; for the messenger had scarcely shut the door

'Mrs. Peerybingle!' said the Toymerchant, hat in hand. 'I'm sorry. I'm more sorry than I was this morning. I

have had time to think of it. John Peerybingle! I'm sour by disposition; but I can't help being sweetened, more

or less, by coming face to face with such a man as you. Caleb! This unconscious little nurse gave me a broken

hint last night, of which I have found the thread. I blush to think how easily I might have bound you and your

daughter to me, and what a miserable idiot I was, when I took her for one! Friends, one and all, my house is

very lonely tonight. I have not so much as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have scared them all away. Be gracious

He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a fellow. What HAD he been doing with himself all his

life, never to have known, before, his great capacity of being jovial! Or what had the Fairies been doing with

There wanted but one living creature to make the party complete; and, in the twinkling of an eye, there he

was, very thirsty with hard running, and engaged in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his head into a narrow

pitcher. He had gone with the cart to its journey's end, very much disgusted with the absence of his master,

and stupendously rebellious to the Deputy. After lingering about the stable for some little time, vainly

attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of returning on his own account, he had walked into the

taproom and laid himself down before the fire. But suddenly yielding to the conviction that the Deputy was

a humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up again, turned tail, and come home.

There was a dance in the evening. With which general mention of that recreation, I should have left it alone,

if I had not some reason to suppose that it was quite an original dance, and one of a most uncommon figure. It

Edward, that sailorfellow a good free dashing sort of a fellow he was had been telling them various

marvels concerning parrots, and mines, and Mexicans, and gold dust, when all at once he took it in his head

to jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for Bertha's harp was there, and she had such a hand upon it as

you seldom hear. Dot (sly little piece of affectation when she chose) said her dancing days were over; I think

because the Carrier was smoking his pipe, and she liked sitting by him, best. Mrs. Fielding had no choice, of

course, but to say HER dancing days were over, after that; and everybody said the same, except May; May

So, May and Edward got up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and Bertha plays her liveliest tune.

Well! if you'll believe me, they have not been dancing five minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe

away, takes Dot round the waist, dashes out into the room, and starts off with her, toe and heel, quite

wonderfully. Tackleton no sooner sees this, than he skims across to Mrs. Fielding, takes her round the waist,

and follows suit. Old Dot no sooner sees this, than up he is, all alive, whisks off Mrs. Dot in the middle of the

dance, and is the foremost there. Caleb no sooner sees this, than he clutches Tilly Slowboy by both hands and

goes off at score; Miss Slowboy, firm in the belief that diving hotly in among the other couples, and effecting

Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp; and how the kettle hums!

But what is this! Even as I listen to them, blithely, and turn towards Dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure

very pleasant to me, she and the rest have vanished into air, and I am left alone. A Cricket sings upon the