“Stop a bit; not so fast,” said Mr Glegg; “I haven’t done with this young man yet. Come in, Tom; come in,” he added, stepping in at the French window. “Mr Glegg,” said Mrs G., in a fatal tone, “if you’re going to let that man and his dog in on my carpet, before my very face, be so good as to let me know. A wife’s got a right to ask that, I hope.” “Don’t you be uneasy, mum,” said Bob, touching his cap. He saw at once that Mrs Glegg was a bit of game worth running down, and longed to be at the sport; “we’ll stay out upo’ the gravel here,—Mumps and me will. Mumps knows his company,—he does. I might hish at him by th’ hour together, before he’d fly at a real gentlewoman like you. It’s wonderful how he knows which is the good-looking ladies; and’s partic’lar fond of ’em when they’ve good shapes. Lors!” added Bob, laying down his pack on the gravel, “it’s a thousand pities such a lady as you shouldn’t deal with a packman, i’ stead o’ goin’ into these newfangled shops, where there’s half-a-dozen fine gents wi’ their chins propped up wi’ a stiff stock, a-looking like bottles wi’ ornamental stoppers, an’ all got to get their dinner out of a bit o’ calico; it stan’s to reason you must pay three times the price you pay a packman, as is the nat’ral way o’ gettin’ goods,—an’ pays no rent, an’ isn’t forced to throttle himself till the lies are squeezed out on him, whether he will or no. But lors! mum, you know what it is better nor I do,—_you_ can see through them shopmen, I’ll be bound.” “Yes, I reckon I can, and through the packmen too,” observed Mrs Glegg, intending to imply that Bob’s flattery had produced no effect on _her;_ while her husband, standing behind her with his hands in his pockets and legs apart, winked and smiled with conjugal delight at the probability of his wife’s being circumvented. “Ay, to be sure, mum,” said Bob. “Why, you must ha’ dealt wi’ no end o’ packmen when you war a young lass—before the master here had the luck to set eyes on you. I know where you lived, I do,—seen th’ house many a time,—close upon Squire Darleigh’s,—a stone house wi’ steps——” “Ah, that it had,” said Mrs Glegg, pouring out the tea. “You know something o’ my family, then? Are you akin to that packman with a squint in his eye, as used to bring th’ Irish linen?”