Richard hurriedly explained that Lucy was still in the Isle of Wight.

“Oh! and you’ve left her for a day or two?” said Mrs. Berry.

“Good God!  I wish it had been a day or two,” cried Richard.

“Ah! and how long have it been?” asked Mrs. Berry, her heart beginning to beat at his manner of speaking.

“Don’t talk about it,” said Richard.

“Oh! you never been dudgeonin’ already?  Oh! you haven’t been peckin’ at one another yet?” Mrs. Berry exclaimed.

Ripton interposed to tell her such fears were unfounded.

“Then how long ha’ you been divided?”

In a guilty voice Ripton stammered “since September.”

“September!” breathed Mrs. Berry, counting on her fingers, “September, October, Nov—­two months and more! nigh three!  A young married husband away from the wife of his bosom nigh three months!  Oh my!  Oh my! what do that mean?”

“My father sent for me—­I’m waiting to see him,” said Richard.  A few more words helped Mrs. Berry to comprehend the condition of affairs.  Then Mrs. Berry spread her lap, flattened out her hands, fixed her eyes, and spoke.

“My dear young gentleman!—­I’d like to call ye my darlin’ babe!  I’m going to speak as a mother to ye, whether ye likes it or no; and what old Berry says, you won’t mind, for she’s had ye when there was no conventionals about ye, and she has the feelin’s of a mother to you, though humble her state.  If there’s one that know matrimony it’s me, my dear, though Berry did give me no more but nine months of it and I’ve known the worst of matrimony, which, if you wants to be woeful wise, there it is for ye.  For what have been my gain?  That man gave me nothin’ but his name; and Bessy Andrews was as good as Bessy Berry, though both is ‘Bs,’ and says he, you was ‘A,’ and now you’s ‘B,’ so you’re my A B, he says, write yourself down that, he says, the bad man, with his jokes!—­Berry went to service.”  Mrs. Berry’s softness came upon her.  “So I tell ye, Berry went to service.  He left the wife of his bosom forlorn and he went to service; because he were allays an ambitious man, and wasn’t, so to speak, happy out of his uniform—­which was his livery—­not even in my arms:  and he let me know it.  He got among them kitchen sluts, which was my mournin’ ready made, and worse than a widow’s cap to me, which is no shame to wear, and some say becoming.  There’s no man as ever lived known better than my Berry how to show his legs to advantage, and gals look at ’em.  I don’t wonder now that Berry was prostrated.  His temptations was strong, and his flesh was weak.  Then what I say is, that for a young married man—­be he whomsoever he may be—­ to be separated from the wife of his bosom—­a young sweet thing, and he an innocent young gentleman!—­so to sunder, in their state, and be kep’ from each other, I say it’s as bad as bad can be!  For what is matrimony, my dears?  We’re told it’s a holy Ordnance.  And why are