“Dear!”

“Have you ever had a lover?”

Here the little woman laughed outright.  A lover!  She could have honestly answered, “Yes,” if the handsome sailor had asked her if she had had several score. A lover, indeed!

“Ah! well, suppose you only had one, when you were a poor girl, and he left you, what then?”

“Oh, I’d kill him first, and cry myself dead afterwards.”

“Well, my sweetheart has gone from me.”

“What! what!—­given you up for any one?”

“Yes, and—­and—­I don’t think he’s my master,—­unless it’s in dollars.”

“Ah!—­And who saved you from the shark?”

“A young French officer,—­bless him!  He harpooned my sealy friend, and found a friend for life,—­though it a’n’t much a poor sailor-fellow can do for an officer.  And, though we’re at war with the French, I’d be hanged sooner than fire at his ship.”

Here Bertha, assisted by Jodoque, set the big jug down upon the table with a bang.  And here, too, something fell down in a neighboring room,—­precisely as though a person, journeying in a dark chamber, had upset a heavy wooden chair.  The noise sent Doome right into the sailor’s arms, and also sent Jodoque right behind Bertha, who turned pale.

“There’s some one in the room,” said Jodoque.

“No, no!” said Bertha—­“’tis poor aunt’s room; no one goes there.  It’s only the rats,—­that’s all,—­only the rats.”

For a stranger, the sailor showed a great deal of curiosity; for he turned very red, and said, “Suppose you look and see.”

“Oh, no, no!  Never mind.  ’Tis only rats.  No one ever goes into that room.  My dear, dear guardian died in that room.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said the sailor, “but rats don’t throw down chairs and tables.”

“No, surely no!” said Jodoque.

“And if the house were mine,” said the sailor, suiting the action to the word, “why, I’d go up to the door like this,—­and I’d put my hand on the latch, and click it should go,—­and—­”

Bertha ran up to the door too, laid her hand upon the sailor’s arm, and drew him away, as he quite willingly let her.  Indeed, he trembled and looked pleadingly at her, as she touched him; and he murmured to himself, “Six years make a good deal of change.”

“You, a guest, have no right to touch that door.”

“If I were your husband, I should have.”

“Surely,—­but you are not.”

“Yes, but this honest man here is as good as your husband.”

“No!”

“No?” said the other three; and Jodoque, but for presence of mind, might have overthrown the big jug of beer.

“No,—­for, truly, I’m not going to marry Jodoque.”

“Not going to marry me?”

“Not going to marry him?—­Why, as sure as you call me Doome, there are the townsfolk, and the musicians, and the good father, and the burgomaster, all with their faces already turned this way, I would wager these new ribbons of mine!”