“Why, that,” replied the pretty housemaid. “Lor, do get along with you.” Thus admonishing him, the pretty housemaid pushed Sam against the wall, declaring that he had tumbled her cap, and put her hair quite out of curl.

“And prevented what I was going to say, besides,” added Mary. “There’s a letter been waiting here for you four days; you hadn’t gone away, half an hour, when it came; and more than that, it’s got ‘immediate,’ on the outside.”

“Vere is it, my love?” inquired Sam.

“I took care of it, for you, or I dare say it would have been lost long before this,” replied Mary. “There, take it; it’s more than you deserve.”

With these words, after many pretty little coquettish doubts and fears, and wishes that she might not have lost it, Mary produced the letter from behind the nicest little muslin tucker possible, and handed it to Sam, who thereupon kissed it with much gallantry and devotion.