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 "Humph!" said Houseman, whose hard, shrewd mind was not easily cajoled, "but what's that paper in your bosom, Bess? a love-letter, I'll swear."

"'Tis to you then; came to you this morning, only somehow or other, I forgot to give it you till now!"

"Ha! a letter to me?" said Houseman, seizing the epistle in question. "Hem! the Knaresbro' postmark—my mother-in-law's crabbed hand, too! what can the old crone want?"

He opened the letter, and hastily scanning its contents, started up.

"Mercy, mercy!" cried he, "my child is ill, dying. I may never see her again,—my only child,—the only thing that loves me,—that does not loath me as a villain!"

"Heyday, Dicky!" said the woman, clinging to him, "don't take on so, who so fond of you as me?—what's a brat like that!"

"Curse on you, hag!" exclaimed Houseman, dashing her to the ground with a rude brutality,