a-tying up, and busting out a-cryin', I knew it all in a moment, that it was all true as true, and that she was going off that morning with everything she could lay her hands on, even to my poor wife's silk dress, only I came back just in time to stop her." Tim Ruggles covered his face with his hands for a moment, and then went on. "I'm only little, sir, and poor and weak, and I don't know whether I feel the same as other people do, sir, when they are in trouble; but I couldn't be in a violent rage, and storm and swear and abuse her, sir and ma'am"--and, probably due to the fact of Tim's head being all in a "wuzzle," he looked at Mrs Jared when he said "sir," and at Jared himself when he said "ma'am;"--"No, I couldn't do it, sir; for there was a strange sort of feeling came over me of our having broken the same bread together for years, she being my wife, and this seemed to stop me; though the nearest point I come to was--but I'm getting wuzzled. I wasn't frightened, sir, not a bit: I was hurt, and cut, and sore, to think that a honest man's wife should have done such a crime; and then made it ten times worse by getting you suspected, because she had a spite against you and Mrs Pellet here, sir, for taking so much notice of my poor Pine, and saying that she was not properly used, for I once let it out that you had said so. Partly that, and partly, you know, because it would clear her; for there was a deal of notice being taken of it all then, so she put the little key in your music-box, sir. "Put the little key in your music-box, sir," continued Tim; "it's all true, sir, for she went down upon her knees, sir, and confessed to it all; and how she had had pounds and pounds, and that you caught her that night in the dark, when she had gone to put back a half-crown or two that was marked, and she was afraid it was found out then; but it was a letter from the vicar which settled it all. And oh! sir, if I had only known of all this, I'd never have asked you to speak up for her to be pew-opener. Yes, sir, it was a letter from the vicar had done it all, telling her never to go near the church again, and giving her what we poor journeymen tailors call the bullet.