from her immediately. Lucy despatched a message for Austin, and related
the Berry history. Austin sent for the great man and said: "Do you know
your wife is here?" Before Berry had time to draw himself up to
enunciate his longest, he was requested to step upstairs, and as his
young mistress at once led the way, Berry could not refuse to put his
legs in motion and carry the stately edifice aloft.

Of the interview Mrs. Berry gave Lucy a slight sketch that night. "He
began in the old way, my dear, and says I, a true heart and plain words,
Martin Berry. So there he cuts himself and his Johnson short, and down
he goes--down on his knees. I never could 'a believed it. I kep my
dignity as a woman till I see that sight, but that done for me. I was a
ripe apple in his arms 'fore I knew where I was. There's something about
a fine man on his knees that's too much for us women. And it reely was
the penitent on his two knees, not the lover on his one. If he mean it!
But ah! what do you think he begs of me, my dear?.--not to make it known
in the house just yet! I can't, I can't say that look well."

Lucy attributed it to his sense of shame at his conduct, and Mrs. Berry
did her best to look on it in that light.

"Did the bar'net kiss ye when you wished him goodnight?" she asked. Lucy
said he had not. "Then bide awake as long as ye can," was Mrs. Berry's
rejoinder. "And now let us pray blessings on that simple-speaking
gentleman who does so much 'cause he says so little."

Like many other natural people, Mrs. Berry was only silly where her own
soft heart was concerned. As she secretly anticipated, the baronet came
into her room when all was quiet. She saw him go and bend over Richard
the Second, and remain earnestly watching him. He then went to the half-