whether she would drink some tea. Says Mrs. Veal, "I do not care if
I do; but I'll warrant you this mad fellow"--meaning Mrs. Bargrave's
husband--"has broke all your trinkets." "But," says Mrs. Bargrave,
"I'll get something to drink in for all that"; but Mrs. Veal waived
it, and said, "It is no matter; let it alone"; and so it passed.

All the time I sat with Mrs. Bargrave, which was some hours, she
recollected fresh sayings of Mrs. Veal. And one material thing more
she told Mrs. Bargrave, that old Mr. Bretton allowed Mrs. Veal ten
pounds a year, which was a secret, and unknown to Mrs. Bargrave till
Mrs. Veal told her.

Mrs. Bargrave never varies in her story, which puzzles those who
doubt of the truth, or are unwilling to believe it. A servant in the
neighbor's yard adjoining to Mrs. Bargrave's house heard her talking
to somebody an hour of the time Mrs. Veal was with her. Mrs. Bargrave
went out to her next neighbor's the very moment she parted with Mrs.
Veal, and told her what ravishing conversation she had had with an old
friend, and told the whole of it. Drelincourt's _Book of Death_ is,
since this happened, bought up strangely. And it is to be observed
that, notwithstanding all the trouble and fatigue Mrs. Bargrave has
undergone upon this account, she never took the value of a farthing,
nor suffered her daughter to take anything of anybody, and therefore
can have no interest in telling the story.

But Mr. Veal does what he can to stifle the matter, and said he would
see Mrs. Bargrave; but yet it is certain matter of fact that he has
been at Captain Watson's since the death of his sister, and yet never
went near Mrs. Bargrave; and some of his friends report her to be a
liar, and that she knew of Mr. Bretton's ten pounds a year. But the