cheats a good deal, drinks not a little, and is generally dissatisfied with his lot. He left her, however, a good round sum of money, such as placed her completely beyond fear of want; and after a decent term of mourning had expired, after she had received the condolences of her neighbours, besides two offers of marriage from publicans in adjoining streets, she took her niece home to live with her, sold off the goodwill of the "Fox and Fiddle," wished her rejected suitors farewell, and sought the hamlet of her childhood, to sit down for life, as she said, in the bar of the "Hamilton Arms." It would be lonesome, no doubt," she sometimes observed, "without Alice; and if ever Alice took and left her, as leave her she might for a home of her own any day, being a good girl and a comely, why then;" and here Mrs. Dodge would simper and look conscious, bristling her fat neck till her little round chin disappeared in its folds, and inferring thereby that, in the event of such a contingency, she might be induced to make one of her customers happy, by consenting to embark on another matrimonial venture before she had done with the institution for good and all. Nor, though Mrs. Dodge was fifty years of age, and weighed fifteen stone, would she have experienced any difficulty in finding a second husband, save, perhaps, the pleasing embarrassment of selection from the multitude at her command. And if her aunt could thus have "lovyers," as she said, "for the looking at 'em," it may be supposed that pretty Alice found no lack of admirers in a house-of-call so well frequented as the "Hamilton Arms." Pretty Alice, with her pale brow, her hazel eyes, her sweet smile, and soft gentle manners, that made sad havoc in the hearts of the young graziers, cattle-dealers, and other travellers that came under their comforting influence off the wild inhospitable moor. Even Captain Bold, the red-nosed "blood," as such persons were then denominated, whose calling nobody knew or dared ask him, but who was conspicuous for his flowing wig, laced coat, and wicked bay mare, would swear, with fearfully ingenious oaths, that Alice was prettier than any lady in St. James's; and if she would but say the word, why burn him, blight him, sink him into the lowest depths of Hamilton Mere, if he, John Bold, wouldn't consent to throw up his profession,
