“Look ’ere! John Stubbs,” she exclaimed, as she waved the epistle towards her husband, with a hand immersed in soap suds; “just see what your darter ’as been a’doin’ of! Gallivanting along with gentlemen, which never did no gal any good yet, and she keeping company with Joe Brushwood all the while. Let me git ’old of the ’ussy and I’ll kill ’er--see if I don’t. My family ’ave always been brought up honest and respectable, and I won’t ’ave any light-a-loves among ’em. I’ll go up to Lunnon by the fust train and give Miss Hannah sich a thrashing as she never ’ad in ’er days before.” “Now! now!” replied Stubbs _père_, “be easy, my lass! The gal’s done no ’arm as I can see! She’s a nice-looking gal, and the gennelmen ’ave paid ’er a compliment or two, p’r’aps. And no wonder! They’re all the same when they sees a nice, fresh country lass, a’bringing in their tea, or what-not. Let it alone! The ould woman will write agen and apologise in a day or two.” “_Let it alone!_ you fool! What are you talking on? Let it alone, till our Hannah comes back to us with a babby at ’er back, like Emily Marks did last year! Will I let it alone? You wait and see,” cried Mrs. Stubbs, as she energetically wiped her steaming arms and hands on a coarse towel. “And there’s Joe Brushwood, too,” she continued, “I wonders what _he’ll_ say to Miss Hannah’s goings-on!” “Sure! you’d never go to make mischief atween the young people?” exclaimed the father. “If anybody makes mischief it’ll be Hannah herself. You mind what she left ’er ’ome for, father! She wouldn’t give up them devilries of hern, not for Joe, nor me, nor no one, but went on talkin’ about woices and shadders till she made me sick. I said I’d ’ave none of it in _my_ ’ouse, and so did Mrs. Brushwood, else Hannah might ’ave been a married woman by this time and safe out of ’arm’s way. But no! she wouldn’t, so I sent ’er to Lunnon to shake the nonsense out of ’er, and this is my reward. She’s a’going to the bad! But she is my lawfully begotten child, and I’ll murder ’er, but she shall give it all up from this day,--gentlemen and shadders and woices, and the whole bag-o’-tricks!” “Well! well! I don’t say nothing against your going,” replied her husband, who like many of his kind was terribly hen-pecked, and afraid to interfere in any matter from fear of making it worse, “but take young Joe along of you. He’ll look arter your traps, for you must stay a night in Lunnon, I guess, and he’ll be powerfully persuasive with the gal, and help you to bring ’er to ’er right senses, eh?” “Yes! that be wise on you, father,” responded his wife, as she put on her linen bonnet and went in search of her neighbour, Mrs. Brushwood.