“I do, sir, I do. I can feel it all through me, by means of what happened to my own husband. Ah, he was a man—could take a scuttle full of coals, and hold it out straight, the same as you might march up the aisle on a Sunday, with your hat right for’ard, to show that it was brushed and shining. But poor Wilcox, he went away at last, with a tub of clothes in his lungs, and the same may occur to the best of us; mayn’t it, Mr. Orchardson? But if you feel a delicate sort of feeling about breaking open the young lady’s letter, and the young gent from the snow-drift is still looking at his legs, I can tell you a good bit of what is going on; though I never was one, and Wilcox knew it, for hearkening so much as a word they say, when the women have done with their teas, and the men stand against the low green palings, with a pot, and a pipe as long as their shirt-sleeves. “Well, sir, it do appear that two bad ones has turned up, over and above the one always there, which I will not name, consequent upon fear. One was Sir Cumberance Hotchpots, or some such name, proving to be a wicked man from the North; and the other was her brother, as ought to be all over, according to the flesh of marriage, sir. Donovan Bulwrag is his name, but every one prefer to call him ‘Downy.’ A hulking young man is my opinion of him; and it has been my lot to behold a good many. You may see it on the tables, sir, that come down from the Mount, going into church any Sunday, that such is forbidden by the law of Moses, for any Christian man to marry. Their father is one, and their mother is one; and they have no right to make a pair of them. You holds on with that, sir, as a respectable man, who has trodden his way in the world, is bound to do?” “Yes, Mrs. Wilcox, I hold to it strongly,” said my uncle, “if I understand you. Do you mean to tell me, that this young man—” “There is the facts, sir, and none of my telling. I was always a very bad hand at telling, though Wilcox he used to say otherwise, when he might be overcome in argument. But facts or no facts, the truth is as I tell you. This Mr. Donovan have come home, from Germany, or some such foreign parts; and whatever his meaning is, that is what it comes to—Miss Kitty can’t have no peace with him. And a yellow young man, Mr. Orchardson; as yellow as a daffodil, his hair, and beard, and eyes.” “I don’t care a fig what his colour may be,” cried my uncle, being now on his high ropes; “he must be a black blackguard, and nothing else, if he dares to take advantage of a girl he should protect. Poor Kitty, what a pretty kettle of fish she is in! You need not tell me, ma’am, I can see it all. I have always had a gift in that way. Though I have not had so very much to do with women, for which I thank the Lord, every night of my life, I understand their ways, as well as if I had been one of them.”