one or two smax, as if there was kissin going on. Here I thought
it best to give a rattle at the door-lock; for, as I live, there
was old Mrs. Shum a-walkin down the stairs!

It appears that one of the younger gals, a-looking out of the bed-
rum window, had seen my master come in, and coming down to tea half
an hour afterwards, said so in a cussary way. Old Mrs. Shum, who
was a dragon of vertyou, cam bustling down the stairs, panting and
frowning, as fat and as fierce as a old sow at feedin time.

"Where's the lodger, fellow?" says she to me.

I spoke loud enough to be heard down the street--"If you mean,
ma'am, my master, Mr. Frederic Altamont, esquire, he's just stept
in, and is puttin on clean shoes in his bedroom."

She said nothink in answer, but flumps past me, and opening the
parlor-door, sees master looking very queer, and Miss Mary a-
drooping down her head like a pale lily.

"Did you come into my famly," says she, "to corrupt my daughters,
and to destroy the hinnocence of that infamous gal? Did you come
here, sir, as a seducer, or only as a lodger? Speak, sir, speak!"--
and she folded her arms quite fierce, and looked like Mrs. Siddums
in the Tragic Mews.

"I came here, Mrs. Shum," said he, "because I loved your daughter,
or I never would have condescended to live in such a beggarly hole.
I have treated her in every respect like a genlmn, and she is as
innocent now, ma'm, as she was when she was born. If she'll marry