Speculating it over with the Mistress, she informed me that the luggage
had been advertised in the Master's time as being to be sold after such
and such a day to pay expenses, but no farther steps had been taken. (I
may here remark, that the Mistress is a widow in her fourth year. The
Master was possessed of one of those unfortunate constitutions in which
Spirits turns to Water, and rises in the ill-starred Victim.)

My speculating it over, not then only, but repeatedly, sometimes with the
Mistress, sometimes with one, sometimes with another, led up to the
Mistress's saying to me,--whether at first in joke or in earnest, or half
joke and half earnest, it matters not:

"Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer."

(If this should meet her eye,--a lovely blue,--may she not take it ill my
mentioning that if I had been eight or ten year younger, I would have
done as much by her! That is, I would have made her a offer. It is for
others than me to denominate it a handsome one.)

"Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer."

"Put a name to it, ma'am."

"Look here, Christopher. Run over the articles of Somebody's Luggage.
You've got it all by heart, I know."

"A black portmanteau, ma'am, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a
brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a
walking-stick."