for another ten minutes, and then Mr. Parable lets them out himself, and goes a little way with them. When he came back we could hear him walking up and down the other room.
She had written and stamped the envelope; it was lying on the table.
"'Joseph Onions, Esq.,'" I says, reading the address. "'Auctioneer and House Agent, Broadway, Hammersmith.' Is that the young man?"
"That is the young man," she says, folding her letter and putting it in the envelope.
"And was he your fiancé?" I asked.
"No," she says. "But he will be if he does what I'm telling him to do."
"And what about Mr. Parable?" I says.
"A little joke that will amuse him later on," she says, slipping a cloak on her shoulders. "How once he nearly married his cook."
"I shan't be a minute," she says. And, with the letter in her hand, she slips out.
Mrs. Meadows, we understand, has expressed indignation at our publication of this interview, she being under the impression that she was simply having a friendly gossip with
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