her.  Not that the matter of the chops occupied her mind particularly:  nor could she dream that the pair in question were destined to form a part of her history, and divert the channel of her fortunes.  Her thoughts were about her own immediate work; and when the landlady rushed in with the chops under a cover, and said:  ’Look at ’em, dear Mrs. Harrington!’ she had forgotten that she was again to be proved right by the turn of events.

‘Oh, the chops!’ she responded.  ‘Send them while they are hot.’

’Send ’em!  Why you don’t think I’d have risked their cooling?  I have sent ’em; and what do he do but send ’em travelling back, and here they be; and what objections his is I might study till I was blind, and I shouldn’t see ’em.’

‘No; I suppose not,’ said Mrs. Mel.  ’He won’t eat ’em?’

’Won’t eat anything:  but his bed-room candle immediately.  And whether his sheets are aired.  And Mary says he sniffed at the chops; and that gal really did expect he ’d fling them at her.  I told you what he was.  Oh, dear!’

The bell was heard ringing in the midst of the landlady’s lamentations.

‘Go to him yourself,’ said Mrs. Mel.  ’No Christian man should go to sleep without his supper.’

‘Ah! but he ain’t a common Christian,’ returned Mrs. Hawkshaw.

The old gentleman was in a hurry to know when his bed-room candle was coming up, or whether they intended to give him one at all that night; if not, let them say so, as he liked plain-speaking.  The moment Mrs. Hawkshaw touched upon the chops, he stopped her mouth.

’Go about your business, ma’am.  You can’t cook ’em.  I never expected you could:  I was a fool to try you.  It requires at least ten years’ instruction before a man can get a woman to cook his chop as he likes it.’

‘But what was your complaint, sir?’ said Mrs. Hawkshaw, imploringly.

‘That’s right!’ and he rubbed his hands, and brightened his eyes savagely.  ’That’s the way.  Opportunity for gossip!  Thing’s well done —­down it goes:  you know that.  You can’t have a word over it—­eh?  Thing’s done fit to toss on a dungheap, aha!  Then there’s a cackle!  My belief is, you do it on purpose.  Can’t be such rank idiots.  You do it on purpose.  All done for gossip!’

‘Oh, sir, no!’ The landlady half curtsied.

‘Oh, ma’am, yes!’ The old gentleman bobbed his head.

‘No, indeed, sir!’ The landlady shook hers.

‘Damn it, ma’am, I swear you do.’

Symptoms of wrath here accompanied the declaration; and, with a sigh and a very bitter feeling, Mrs. Hawkshaw allowed him to have the last word.  Apparently this—­which I must beg to call the lady’s morsel—­comforted his irascible system somewhat; for he remained in a state of composure eight minutes by the clock.  And mark how little things hang together.  Another word from the landlady, precipitating a retort from him, and a gesture or muttering from