lurch since the first paragraph. She had been into Boston one day,
shopping, and returned home in the omnibus. She sat between two young
men. The one on her right was modest and well-behaved, while the other
was entirely the reverse. He might have been drinking--he might have
been partially insane--these are charitable suppositions; but at all
events, he had the impertinence to address Mrs. Tubbs in a low tone,
audible only to herself. He muttered some compliment to her
appearance--talked a little nonsense--inoffensive in itself, but
intolerable as coming from a stranger. Mrs. Tubbs made no reply, but
she was glad to spring from the conveyance when the driver pulled up
at the Norfolk House. To her great joy she espied the faithful Tubbs,
attired in a _blouse_, and wheeling a barrow full of gravel down
Bartlett Street, with all the dignity of a gentleman farmer, conscious
of being a useful, if not an ornamental, member of society. She
accosted him with,--

"Tubbs, love, I've got something to tell you."

Tubbs relinquished the handles of the barrow, and sat down in the
gravel.

"Mr. Tubbs!" screamed the lady, "you've got your best pantaloons on."

"Never mind, my dear; out with your story, for I'm busy."

"Mr. Tubbs! I've been insulted!"

Mr. Tubbs's head instantly became as red as one of his own blood
beets.