"I never heard of her," replied Ben, also getting up; "but Mistress
Saunders seems taken all aback, anyhow. Jack, run and fetch a bucket of
water!"

"Jack, stay where you are," cried my mother, springing from the chair on
which she had thrown herself. "Oh, dear me! the shock was so sudden--I'm
so flustered. Who'd have thought to have seen you?"

"Are you her brother?" inquired Ben.

"No; but I'm her husband," replied my father.

"Well, it's the first time I've heard that she had one--but I'll be off,
for Mistress Saunders is too genteel to kiss, I see, before company."
Ben then took up his stick and left the house.

It may be as well here to remark that during his absence my father had
fallen in with one of the men who had been employed in the press-gang.
From him he learned that a woman had given the information by which he
was taken. He made the man, who was present when my mother called upon
the officer, describe her person, and the description in every point was
so accurate that my father had no doubt in his mind but that it was my
mother who had betrayed him. This knowledge had for years rankled in his
breast, and he had come home, not only from a wish to see how things
were going on, but to reproach my mother with her treachery.

Whether my mother's conscience smote her, or that she perceived by my
father's looks that a squall was brewing, I know not; but as soon as Ben
had left the house, she shut the street-door that the neighbors might
not hear. Having so done, she turned to my father, who had resumed his