"Oh! you never been dudgeonin' already? Oh! you haven't been peckin' at
one another yet?" Mrs. Berry exclaimed.

Ripton interposed to tell her such fears were unfounded.

"Then how long ha' you been divided?"

In a guilty voice Ripton stammered "since September."

"September!" breathed Mrs. Berry, counting on her fingers, "September,
October, Nov--two months and more! nigh three! A young married husband
away from the wife of his bosom nigh three months! Oh my! Oh my! what
do that mean?"

"My father sent for me--I'm waiting to see him," said Richard. A few
more words helped Mrs. Berry to comprehend the condition of affairs.
Then Mrs. Berry spread her lap, flattened out her hands, fixed her eyes,
and spoke.

"My dear young gentleman!--I'd like to call ye my darlin' babe! I'm
going to speak as a mother to ye, whether ye likes it or no; and what old
Berry says, you won't mind, for she's had ye when there was no
conventionals about ye, and she has the feelin's of a mother to you,
though humble her state. If there's one that know matrimony it's me, my
dear, though Berry did give me no more but nine months of it and I've
known the worst of matrimony, which, if you wants to be woeful wise,
there it is for ye. For what have been my gain? That man gave me
nothin' but his name; and Bessy Andrews was as good as Bessy Berry,
though both is 'Bs,' and says he, you was 'A,' and now you's 'B,' so