_Mary._ "Well, ma'am, I did go twice after my brother died; but I can scarce ever find time, betwixt waiting on the cow, and the pig, and John--and he taks as much as t'other two put together; he won't so much as reach out his hand to reach hisself a cup or a saucer. I gets up at four o'clock on Sundays to milk cow, and then there's John's boots to be blacked, and a deal of mud scraped off 'em first, and breakfast to get in time for him to go to chapel at nine (and he scolds me finely if he's late), and then pig to be fed and our dinner to get. I said to John one Sunday, when he'd been saying, 'Woman, thou'lt go to Fire and Brimstone as sure as thou'rt born, for thou niver goest to church nor chapel;' 'Very well,' says I, 'then thou must feed pig thyself to-day.' 'I'll let him starve first,' says John; and, sure enough, pig would have starved if I had na' crep out at night to feed him. So when I come back I thought I'd have it out wi' John, so I says, 'I'm not a bit likelier to go to Fire and Brimstone than thou art, with all thy blaating and praying; and as for them Methodies, I hates 'em, with all them collections, sixpence here and sixpence there; and I have read in a book that John Wesley did not improve of their axing folks for money.' So John says quite scornful, 'I wonder where you got that much larning, woman.' 'When I had the hopportunity,' I says quite scornful back again. You know, Miss A., I'd read it in a book as was full of all manner of things about railroads and such like. I suppose, ma'am, you've seen London Bridge. Eh! dear, what a place it must be! They say the railway carriages, and carriages and cabs with horses, are all running together upon the rails, and it's nothing but them pints as keeps them from all being smashed together." Again, two years later: _Miss A._ "How have you and John been getting on since I saw you?"