why do we converse alone together, when we can converse so well with her?
Address her in your own way."

"I am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir," says I, "and she is
such a graceful woman, and she stands so quiet at the door!"

"_Try_ if she moves at the old sign," says the gentleman.

They had got it up together o' purpose to please me! For when I give her
the old sign, she rushed to my feet, and dropped upon her knees, holding
up her hands to me with pouring tears of love and joy; and when I took
her hands and lifted her, she clasped me round the neck, and lay there;
and I don't know what a fool I didn't make of myself, until we all three
settled down into talking without sound, as if there was a something soft
and pleasant spread over the whole world for us.

* * * * *

[A portion is here omitted from the text, having reference to the
sketches contributed by other writers; but the reader will be pleased to
have what follows retained in a note:

"Now I'll tell you what I am a-going to do with you. I am a-going to
offer you the general miscellaneous lot, her own book, never read by
anybody else but me, added to and completed by me after her first reading
of it, eight-and-forty printed pages, six-and-ninety columns, Whiting's
own work, Beaufort House to wit, thrown off by the steam-ingine, best of
paper, beautiful green wrapper, folded like clean linen come home from
the clear-starcher's, and so exquisitely stitched that, regarded as a
piece of needlework alone, it's better than the sampler of a seamstress