Tales and Novels, vol 5

hall, that there is to be a very pettiklar old gentleman, as rich! as rich! as rich can be! from foreign parts, and a great friend of the colonel that's dead; and he--that is, the old pettiklar gentleman--is to be down all the way from Lon'on to dine at the park on Tuesday for sartin: so, husband, away with the john-doree and the turbot, while they be fresh."

"But why," thought Miss Walsingham, "did not Mrs. Beaumont tell us the plain truth, if this is the truth?"

CHAPTER II.

"Young Hermes next, a close contriving god, Her brows encircled with his serpent rod; Then plots and fair excuses fill her brain, And views of breaking am'rous vows for gain."

The information which Mrs. Beaumont's man, Martin, had learned from the servants' hall, and had communicated to the fisherman's wife, was more correct, and had been less amplified, embellished, misunderstood, or misrepresented, than is usually found