Jenny's beaming face fell. In her rough, untutored heart she had already conceived an affection for Bet. She would have dearly liked to sit in her very dirty attic bedroom, and gossip with her. That would have been nearly as good as walking through the streets of Warrington in company with so distinguished a companion. To walk through the streets, the envied of all, with Bet by her side would have been a crowning triumph for the poor little hawker, Jenny; but to give her up her room,--not to see her at all for a whole hour,--was a far less agreeable matter. "Oh, I'll do it," she said. "You're welcome to the room. It ain't for me to make no objections." She spoke summarily, and with some bitterness of spirit, but Bet was far too much absorbed in her own meditations to notice her. When Jenny finally closed the door of her apartment, and unwillingly sauntered downstairs, Bet drew Will's letter from its hiding-place. She tore it open, and her feverish bright eyes devoured the few lines it contained. These were the words with which Will bade his sweetheart good-bye: "Dear Bet,--Isaac Dent will take you my farewell. I am free, and I means to find a berth in the first ship as leaves the docks as 'ull take me on board. Dear Bet--I was innercent as the babe unborn--but it was Dent as cleared me. He spoke as a man, dear Bet, and I was proud to think as we was pals once on board The Albion ship when it sailed over the dancing waves. He's not a feller to let a comrade suffer, is Dent. I got your letter. You was right, Bet--I couldn't a-bear prison,--it was killing me by inches. I'm wasted now almost to a shadder. Dent tells me as you'll soon be wed, and that never may I call you wife o' mine. Bless you and him! I hasn't another word to say.--Will Scarlett." Bet read this letter with some difficulty. She was, as she said, "a poor scholard," and she had to spread out the sheet of thin paper on Jenny's little bed, and laboriously spell through the words before she could arrive at any true glimpse of their meaning. It dawned upon her, after nearly an hour's severe study,--it dawned upon her just as Jenny's impatient tap came to the door, and her still more impatient voice exclaimed-- "Time's hup--I'm going hawking." Bet felt herself turning cold and hot, as the meaning of Will's words seemed to scathe and burn her brain. Then, quick as a flash of lightning, another thought came to her, and she smiled, and tore the obnoxious and cruel letter into a thousand little bits. "That wasn't from my Will," she said. "Dent wrote it--not Will. My lad,--why he jest couldn't put words on paper sech as them! This is Dent's villainy;--yes, Jenny, I'm a-coming," she called out in quite a cheerful tone. A weight was lifted from her mind when the conviction became assured that this letter was none of Will's. She went downstairs, and Jenny and she, on the best of terms, commenced their life of hawking together.