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 where you may spend the close of your harmless life in ease and plenty."

"Ease and plenty! house!" repeated Natty slowly. "You mean well, gal, you mean well, and I quite mourn that it cannot be; but he has seen me a sight and a laughing-stock for"

"Damn your stocks" said Benjamin, flourishing his bottle with one hand, from which he had been faking hasty and repeated draughts, while he made gestures of disdain with the other; "who cares for his bilboes? there's a leg that's been stuck up an end like a gib-boom for an hour, d'ye see, and what's it the worse for't, ha! canst tell me, what's it the worser, ha?"

"I believe you forget, Mr. Pump, in whose presence you sit with so much composure," said Elizabeth.

"Forget you, Miss 'Lizzy," returned the steward; "if I do dam'me; you're not to be forgot, like Goody Pretty-bones, up at the big house there. I say old sharp-shooter, she may have pretty bones, but I can't say so much for her flesh d'ye see, for she looks sum'mat like an otomy with another man's jacket on. Now, for the skin of her face, it's all the same as a new top-sail with a taught bolt-rope, being snug at the leaches, but all in a bight about the inner cloths."

"Peace―I command you to be silent, sir," said Elizabeth.

"Ay, ay, ma'am," returned the steward. "You didn't say I shouldn't drink, though."

"We will not speak of what is to become of others," said Miss Temple, turning again to the hunter—"but of your own fortunes, Natty. It shall be my care to see that you pass the rest of your days in ease and plenty."

"Ease and plenty!" again repeated the Leather-stocking; "what ease can there be to an old