JOHN [looking after her].--It's all true. Gospel-true. We were children
in the same village--sat on the same form at school. And it was for her
sake that Bob Brown the butcher's boy whopped me. A black eye! I'm not
handsome. But if I were ugly, ugly as the Saracen's 'Ead, ugly as that
beast Bulkeley, I know it would be all the same to Mary. SHE has never
forgot the boy she loved, that brought birds'-nests for her, and
spent his halfpenny on cherries, and bought a fairing with his first
half-crown--a brooch it was, I remember, of two billing doves a-hopping
on one twig, and brought it home for little yellow-haired, blue-eyed,
red-cheeked Mary. Lord, Lord! I don't like to think how I've kissed 'em,
the pretty cheeks! they've got quite pale now with crying--and she has
never once reproached me, not once, the trump, the little tr-rump!

Is it my fault [stamping] that Fate has separated us? Why did my young
master take me up to Oxford, and give me the run of his libery and the
society of the best scouts in the University? Why did he take me abroad?
Why have I been to Italy, France, Jummany with him--their manners noted
and their realms surveyed, by jingo! I've improved myself, and Mary has
remained as you was. I try a conversation, and she can't respond. She's
never got a word of poetry beyond Watt's Ims, and if I talk of Byron or
Moore to her, I'm blest if she knows anything more about 'em than the
cook, who is as hignorant as a pig, or that beast Bulkeley, Lady Kick's
footman. Above all, why, why did I see the woman upon whom my
wretched heart is fixed for ever, and who carries away my soul with
her--prostrate, I say, prostrate, through the mud at the skirts of her
gownd! Enslaver! why did I ever come near you? O enchantress Kelipso!
how you have got hold of me! It was Fate, Fate, Fate. When Mrs. Milliken
fell ill of scarlet fever at Naples, Milliken was away at Petersborough,
Rooshia, looking after his property. Her foring woman fled. Me and the