Page:Stubbs's Calendar or The Fatal Boots.djvu/88

74 speak; going up again and stopping with their mother At last, one day, both of them came in very solemn to my study, and Eliza, the eldest, said, "Robert, mamma has paid you our board up to Michaelmas."

"She has," says I; for I always took precious good care to have it in advance.

"She says, John, that on Michaelmas day—we’ll—we'll go away, John."

"O, she’s going to her own house, is she, Lizzy? very good; she’ll want the furniture, I suppose, and that she may have too, for I’m going to sell the place myself;" and so that matter was settled.

On Michaelmas day, and during these two months, I hadn't, I do believe, seen my mother twice (once, about two o’clock in the morning, I woke and found her sobbing over my bed). On Michaelmas day morning, Eliza comes to me and says, "John, they will come and fetch us at six this evening." Well, as this was the last day, I went and got the best goose I could find (I don't think I ever saw a primer, or ate more hearty