Now I scarcely know whether it would be more clear to put into narrative what I heard from Betsy Bowen, now Wilhelmina Strouss, or to let her tell the whole in her own words, exactly as she herself told it then to me. The story was so dark and sad--or at least to myself it so appeared--that even the little breaks and turns of lighter thought or livelier manner, which could scarcely fail to vary now and then the speaker's voice, seemed almost to grate and jar upon its sombre monotone. On the other hand, by omitting these, and departing from her homely style, I might do more of harm than good through failing to convey impressions, or even facts, so accurately. Whereas the gist and core and pivot of my father's life and fate are so involved (though not evolved) that I would not miss a single point for want of time or diligence. Therefore let me not deny Mrs. Strouss, my nurse, the right to put her words in her own way. And before she began to do this she took the trouble to have every thing cleared away and the trays brought down, that her boarders (chiefly German) might leave their plates and be driven to their pipes. “If you please, Miss Castlewood,” Mrs. Strouss said, grandly, “do you or do you not approve of the presence of 'my man,' as he calls himself?--an improper expression, in my opinion; such, however, is their nature. He can hold his tongue as well as any man, though none of them are very sure at that. And he knows pretty nigh as much as I do, so far as his English can put things together, being better accustomed in German. For when we were courting I was fain to tell him all, not to join him under any false pretenses, miss, which might give him grounds against me.” “Yes, yes, it is all vere goot and true--so goot and true as can be.” “And you might find him come very handy, my dear, to run of any kind of messages. He can do that very well, I assure you, miss--better than any Englishman.” Seeing that he wished to stay, and that she desired it, I begged him to stop, though it would have been more to my liking to hear the tale alone.