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12 'Nor nobody else either. But don't you tell him so,' and she nodded with her head to the side of the house on which the office stood. 'I had as nice a set of mahoganys as ever a woman could want, and bought with my own money too, John; but he's took them away to furnish some of his lodgings opposite, and put them things here in their place. Don't, Sam; you'll have 'em all twisted about nohows in no time if you go to use 'em in that way.'

'I wants to see the pictur' on the table,' said Sam.

'Drat the picture,' said Mrs. Dockwrath. 'It was hard, wasn't it, John, to see my own mahoganys, as I had rubbed with my own hands till they was ever so bright, and as was bought with my own money too, took away and them things brought here? Sam, if you twist that round any more, I'll box your ears. One can't hear oneself speak with the noise.'

'They don't seem to be very useful,' said Kenneby.

'Useful! They're got up for cheatery;—that's what they're got up for. And that Dockwrath should be took in with 'em—he that's so sharp at everything,—that's what surprises me. But laws, John, it isn't the sharp ones that gets the best off. You was never sharp, but you're as smirk and smooth as though you came out of a band-box. I am glad to see you, John, so I am.' And she put her apron up to her eyes and wiped away a tear.

'Is Mr. Dockwrath at home?' said John.

'Sam, run round and see if your father's in the office. He'll be home to dinner, I know. Molly, do be quiet with your sister. I never see such a girl as you are for bothering. You didn't come down about business, did you, John?' And then Kenneby explained to her that he had been summoned by Dockwrath as to the matter of this Orley Farm trial. While he was doing so, Sam returned to say that his father had stepped out, but would be back in half an hour, and Mrs. Dockwrath, finding it impossible to make use of her company sitting-room, took her old lover into the family apartment which they all ordinarily occupied.

'You can sit down there at any rate without it all crunching under you, up to nothing.' And she emptied for him as she spoke the seat of an old well-worn horse-hair bottomed arm-chair. 'As to them tin things I wouldn't trust myself on one of them; and so I told him, angry as it made him. But now about poor Lady Mason. Sam and Molly, you go into the garden, there's good children. They is so ready with their ears, John; and he contrives to get everything out of 'em. Now do tell me about this.'

Kenneby could not help thinking that the love match between Miriam and her husband had not turned out in all respects well, and I fear that he derived from the thought a certain feeling of consolation. 'He' was spoken about in a manner that did not betoken unfailing love and perfect confidence. Perhaps Miriam