Mr. Weller was so deeply overcome on receiving this intelligence that he found it absolutely necessary to cling to his fair informant for support; and divers little love passages had passed between them, before he was sufficiently collected to return to the subject.

“Vell,” said Sam at length, “if this don’t beat cock-fightin’ nothin’ never vill, as the lord mayor said, ven the chief secretary o’ state proposed his missis’s health arter dinner. That wery next house! Wy, I’ve got a message to her as I’ve been a-trying all day to deliver.”

“Ah,” said Mary, “but you can’t deliver it now, because she only walks in the garden in the evening, and then only for a very little time; she never goes out, without the old lady.”