Mrs. Berry compressed her person in the chair she was beckoned to occupy.

“Well’ ma’am, you have something to say,” observed the baronet, for she seemed loth to commence.

“Wishin’ I hadn’t—­” Mrs. Berry took him up, and mindful of the good rule to begin at the beginning, pursued:  “I dare say, Sir Austin, you don’t remember me, and I little thought when last we parted our meeting ’d be like this.  Twenty year don’t go over one without showin’ it, no more than twenty ox.  It’s a might o’ time,—­twenty year!  Leastways not quite twenty, it ain’t.”

“Round figures are best,” Adrian remarked.

“In them round figures a be-loved son have growed up, and got himself married!” said Mrs. Berry, diving straight into the case.

Sir Austin then learnt that he had before him the culprit who had assisted his son in that venture.  It was a stretch of his patience to hear himself addressed on a family matter; but he was naturally courteous.

“He came to my house, Sir Austin, a stranger!  If twenty year alters us as have knowed each other on the earth, how must they alter they that we parted with just come from heaven!  And a heavenly babe he were! so sweet! so strong! so fat!”

Adrian laughed aloud.

Mrs. Berry bumped a curtsey to him in her chair, continuing:  “I wished afore I spoke to say how thankful am I bound to be for my pension not cut short, as have offended so, but that I know Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey, ain’t one o’ them that likes to hear their good deeds pumlished.  And a pension to me now, it’s something more than it were.  For a pension and pretty rosy cheeks in a maid, which I was—­that’s a bait many a man’ll bite, that won’t so a forsaken wife!”

“If you will speak to the point, ma’am, I will listen to you,” the baronet interrupted her.

“It’s the beginnin’ that’s the worst, and that’s over, thank the Lord!  So I’ll speak, Sir Austin, and say my say:—­Lord speed me!  Believin’ our idees o’ matrimony to be sim’lar, then, I’ll say, once married—­married for life!  Yes!  I don’t even like widows.  For I can’t stop at the grave.  Not at the tomb I can’t stop.  My husband’s my husband, and if I’m a body at the Resurrection, I say, speaking humbly, my Berry is the husband o’ my body; and to think of two claimin’ of me then—­it makes me hot all over.  Such is my notion of that state ’tween man and woman.  No givin’ in marriage, o’ course I know; and if so I’m single.”

The baronet suppressed a smile.  “Really, my good woman, you wander very much.”

“Beggin’ pardon, Sir Austin; but I has my point before me all the same, and I’m comin’ to it.  Ac-knowledgin’ our error, it’d done, and bein’ done, it’s writ aloft.  Oh! if you ony knew what a sweet young creature she be!  Indeed; ’taint all of humble birth that’s unworthy, Sir Austin.  And she got her idees, too:  She reads History!  She talk that sensible as would surprise ye.  But for