"I won't."

"Only think of how happy we should be, with you at your housekeeping, and me with my tallers!"

"And smelling ten times worse of burnt mutton-chops than you do now when you come."

"Smell, Keziah! Oh, what's smell when him as smells loves you? Ah, Keziah! I did think you'd got a heart that I could melt like good quality fat; but it's a stringy and gristly heart, Keziah, one as is full of pride. On my bended knees I ask you to say yes."

"Git up, do, with your clat. The idee of going down on the carpet like that, just for all the world like a man in a stage-play. Such stuff indeed. If you don't get up directly I'll run out of the room, that I will. Do you take me for a silly girl? at my time of life too."

"No, Keziah," said the man of bended knees, rising slowly to stand once more, a fat, podgy little fellow, whose anxious face grew more ludicrous each moment. "No, Keziah, I only take you for a very hard-hearted woman."

"Don't be a noodles, Peter," exclaimed Keziah. "Didn't I always tell you, when I gave consent for you to come and see me, that I'd never think of marrying till Miss May was settled?"

"Yes, you did," said Peter, "but she's such a long time over it."

"Stuff!" said Keziah.

"But she is indeed," cried Peter, trying to catch one of the lady's hands in his. "You see she's only nineteen, and can afford to wait a few years. But you see, dear, I'm forty, and you are--"

"Yes, I know, I'm forty, too, and I'm not ashamed of it, so you needn't twit me with that," said Keziah snappishly. "I'm in no hurry to change my name into Pash--Pash indeed. I'm sure Bay's ever so much better."

"It is! I know it is," said Peter, "and I didn't twit you about your years. Ain't I always said that you were just growing into your prime?

But I see how it is: it's pride--it's the pride of the composites, Keziah, and you're trying to throw me over after I've been a true lover all these years."

"Are you going to talk sense; or am I to leave you to chatter that sickly twaddle to the cat?--true lover indeed!"

"Go it!" cried Peter, "it's pride! I can see through it all. Why don't you be open with me? But, mark my words, Keziah, there's more sterling substance in a short six, or even a height, than in all your grand composites, as set themselves up for sparm or wax. I'm tallow, I am, and I respect tallow. I like people not to be ashamed of their position. We can't all be wax, nor yet sparm, so why not be content as a good honest dip, or a mould! Why, even your twelve or fourteen has a honesty about it that your sham, make-believe imitation wax don't possess--things as won't stand so much as a draught of air without flaring, and guttering down, and spattering all over your carpets. It's pride, Keziah, and that's all about it."

"No, it ain't," said Keziah quietly.

"To throw me over like this," continued Mr Pash in injured tones, "and after all my attentions and presents."

"Presents, indeed!" exclaimed the lady, "attentions!--very delicate attentions. Kidneys, that you got out of the nasty fat that you buy of the butchers."

"But I never brought one as was the least tainted," said Peter, "and you always said there was nothing nicer for supper."

"And, pray, who always ate a good half?" retorted Keziah angrily.

"But I never should have touched 'em if they hadn't been so gloriously cooked--such brown--such gravy! O, Keziah, don't be hard on me," sighed Peter.

"Peter Pash!" exclaimed the lady indignantly, "you're a great goose; and if I didn't know that you'd been sitting here three hours without nothing stronger than small beer before you, I should say you'd been drinking. Now, once for all, you can come if you like, or you can stay away if you like. I'm not going even to think about getting married till Miss May's settled, and that won't be well, never mind that. Now go home."

"Yes, my dear," said Peter in a resigned way, and taking his hat off the sideboard he began to brush the nap round and round very carefully.

"But you're very hard on me, Keziah."

"Didn't I tell you to go?" said the lady.

Peter Pash sighed and drew the back of his hand across his mouth, but then his heart failed him, and he shook hands and said "good-night"-- words which seemed thrown back at him by the lady of his heart; directly after he withdrew in accordance with the line in italics which appeared at the bottom of his tallow-chandler's trade card--"N.B. Orders punctually executed!" leaving Keziah Bay, cook and housekeeper to John Richards, the old money-lender, of Walbrook, nipping her lips together, beating one foot upon the fender, and frowning very fiercely at the fire.

For this had been a very exciting affair for Mrs Keziah Bay, since, heretofore, Peter Pash's custom had been to come three times a week to Walbrook, where he would sit in the half kitchen, half sitting-room, of the dingy old mansion--a house built in the days when merchants condescended to live over their offices, with bedrooms looking down upon warehouse or yard--sit and smoke a pipe while Keziah darned her master's stockings; stare at her very hard, sup, and say "good-night," and then go. That was the extent of Peter Pash's courting. He had certainly once before said something respecting wedding, and been snubbed into silence; but only that once; hence, then, this had been rather an exciting time at Walbrook, and for more reasons than that one.

Mrs Keziah Bay had not been thoughtfully tapping the old-fashioned bra.s.s fender with her foot for more than five minutes before the door softly opened and a slight girlish figure entered, to steal quietly to the comely dame's side, kneel down, and clasp two little white hands round her waist.

"That means trouble, I know," said Keziah sharply, but all the same one of her hands was pa.s.sed caressingly over the soft brown hair, and her lips were pressed to the white upturned forehead. "That means trouble, and worry, and upsets, or you wouldn't come to me. Now, what is it?

But there: I know: you've been thinking about Frank Marr; haven't you?"

A sigh was taken for an affirmative answer, and Keziah continued:

"What's Mr Brough been here for to-night?"

"Don't talk about it--don't ask me!" cried the kneeling girl, who now burst out into a pa.s.sion of weeping. "O, 'Ziah, what shall I do, what shall I do?"

"Why, tell me all about what you're crying for, to be sure," cried Keziah sharply; but all the same with a motherly attempt or two at soothing. "Surely master hasn't been at you again about Mr Frank, has he?"

"O, yes--yes," sobbed the girl; "and it does seem so cruel and hard. O, 'Ziah, I've no one to talk to but you--no one to ask for help. He talks as if Frank could help being poor, and not prospering in his business, when, poor fellow, he strove so hard."

"But what did he bring all that up for?" cried Keziah. "Mr Frank hasn't been here these two months, I'll swear. Did you say anything?"

"No, no!" sobbed the girl, bursting into a fresh paroxysm of weeping.

"Then some one must have brought it up. There, I see plain as plain.

Bless him! He ought to be boiled in his own sugar, that he ought! He's a nice fellow, he is, for a sugar-baker, to come here tattling and setting people against other people."

"What do you mean?" sobbed May Richards, gazing wonderingly at her comforter.

"Mean? Why, that that old Tom Brough ought to be ashamed of himself to come tattling to master about Mr Frank. That was it, wasn't it?"

"No, no!" sobbed the poor girl wearily.

"Then what did he come for?" said Keziah.

There was a pause, during which May wept bitterly.

"I shall go and ask master myself," said Keziah authoritatively, as she half rose. "I'm not going to have my child upset like this for nothing."

"No, no, no!" sobbed May. "Pray stay, 'Ziah--dear 'Ziah, don't be angry, and I'll tell you all."

"Then what is it?" said Keziah.

"Mr Brough--"

"Well?"

"Mr Brough has been to talk to papa."

"Well, go on, child, for goodness' sake, and do wipe your eyes. He's been to talk to master, and what about, pray?"

"About me," sobbed May.