“He, he, he!”

“Good morning, Mr Forster, how is your good lady?”

“She’s safe moored at last,” interrupted Mr Hilton.

“Who?” demanded the curate, with surprise.

“Why the sloop, to be sure.”

“Oh!  I thought you meant the lady—­Ha, ha, ha!”

“He, he, he!”

“Won’t you sit down, gentlemen?” said Nicholas, showing the way from the shop into the parlour, where they found Mrs Forster, who had just come in from the back premises.

“Hope you’re well, Mr Curate,” sharply observed the lady, who could not be persuaded, even from respect for the cloth, to be commonly civil—­“take a chair; it’s all covered with dust; but that Betsy is such an idle slut!”

“Newton handles her as well as any man going,” observed Hilton.

“Newton!” screamed the lady, turning to her son, with an angry inquiring look—­“Newton handles Betsy!” continued she, turning round to Hilton.

“Betsy! no; the sloop I meant, ma’am.”

Newton burst out into a laugh, in which he was joined by Hilton and his father.

“Sad business—­sad indeed!” said Hilton, after the merriment had subsided, “such an awful death!”

“Ha, ha, ha!” roared the curate, who had but just then taken the joke about Betsy.

“He, he, he!”

“Nothing to laugh at, that I can see,” observed Mrs Forster, snappishly.

“Capital joke, ma’am, I assure you!” rejoined the curate.  “But, Mr Forster, we had better proceed to business.  Spinney, where are the papers?” The clerk produced an inventory of the effects of the late Mr Thompson, and laid them on the table.—­“Melancholy thing, this, ma’am,” continued the curate, “very melancholy indeed!  But we must all die.”

“Yes, thank Heaven!” muttered Nicholas, in an absent manner.

“Thank Heaven, Mr Forster!” cried the lady,—­“why, do you wish to die?”

“I was not exactly thinking about myself, my dear,” replied Nicholas—­“I—­”

“Depend upon it she’ll last a long while yet,” interrupted Mr Hilton.

“Do you think so?” replied Nicholas, mournfully.

“Oh! sure of it; I stripped her the other day, and examined her all over; she’s as sound as ever.”

Nicholas started, and stared Hilton in the face; while Newton, who perceived their separate train of thought, tittered with delight.

“What are you talking of?” at last observed Nicholas.

“Of the sloop, to be sure,” replied Hilton.

“I rather imagine that you came to consult about Mr Thompson’s effects,” observed Mrs Forster, angrily—­“rather a solemn subject, instead of—­”

“Ha, ha, ha!” ejaculated the curate, who had just taken the equivoque which had occasioned Newton’s mirth.

“He, he, he!”

This last merriment of Mr Dragwell appeared to the lady to be such a pointed insult to her, that she bounded out of the room, exclaiming, “that an alehouse would have been a more suitable rendezvous."