Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 2.djvu/197

 back, and uttered a half-suppressed scream. Sam was scarcely less stupefied, for in the countenance of the well-shaped female servant, he beheld the very eyes of his Valentine, the pretty housemaid from Mr. Nupkins's.

"Wy, Mary my dear!" said Sam.

"Lauk, Mr. Weller," said Mary, "how you do frighten one!"

Sam made no verbal answer to this complaint, nor can we precisely say what reply he did make. We merely know that after a short pause Mary said, "Lor do adun, Mr. Weller!" and that his hat had fallen off a few moments before—from both of which tokens we should be disposed to infer that one kiss or more, had passed between the parties.

"Why, how did you come here?" said Mary, when the conversation to which this interruption had been offered, was resumed.

"O' course I came to look arter you, my darlin," replied Mr. Weller; for once permitting his passion to get the better of his veracity.

"And how did you know I was here?" inquired Mary. "Who could have told you that I took another service at Ipswich, and that they afterwards moved all the way here? Who could have told you that, Mr. Weller?"

"Ah to be sure," said Sam with a cunning look, "that's the pint. Who could ha' told me?"

"It wasn't Mr. Muzzle, was it?" inquired Mary.

"Oh, no," replied Sam, with a solemn shake of the head, "it warn't him."

"It must have been the cook," said Mary.

"O' course it must," said Sam. but "Well, I never heard the like of that!" exclaimed Mary.

"No more did I," said Sam. "But Mary, my dear:" here Sam's manner grew extremely affectionate: "Mary, my dear, I've got another affair in hand as is wery pressin'. There's one o' my governor's friends—Mr. Winkle, you remember him."

"Him in the green coat?" said Mary. "Oh, yes, I remember him."