"No;—but you cut me to the heart."

"That we can hardly help;—can we? When two persons have made fools of themselves as we have, there must I suppose be some punishment. Yours will never be heavy after I am gone. I do not start till the first of next month because that is the day fixed by our friend, Mr. Fisker, and I shall remain here till then because my presence is convenient to Mrs. Pipkin; but I need not trouble you to come to me again. Indeed it will be better that you should not. Good-bye."

He took her by the hand, and stood for a moment looking at her, while she smiled and gently nodded her head at him. Then he essayed to pull her towards him as though he would again kiss her. But she repulsed him, still smiling the while. "No, sir; no; not again; never again, never,—never,—never again." By that time she had recovered her hand and stood apart from him. "Good-bye, Paul;—and now go." Then he turned round and left the room without uttering a word.

She stood still, without moving a limb, as she listened to his step down the stairs and to the opening and the closing of the door. Then hiding herself at the window with the scanty drapery of the curtain she watched him as he went along the street. When he had turned the corner she came back to the centre of the room, stood for a moment with her arms stretched out towards the walls, and then fell prone upon the floor. She had spoken the very truth when she said that she had loved him with all her heart.

Mrs. Hurtle at the window.
Click to [ENLARGE]

But that evening she bade Mrs. Pipkin drink tea with her and was more gracious to the poor woman than ever. When the obsequious but still curious landlady asked some question about Mr. Montague, Mrs. Hurtle seemed to speak very freely on the subject of her late lover,—and to speak without any great pain. They had put their heads together, she said, and had found that the marriage would not be suitable. Each of them preferred their own country, and so they had agreed to part. On that evening Mrs. Hurtle made herself more than usually pleasant, having the children up into her room, and giving them jam and bread-and-butter. During the whole of the next fortnight she seemed to take a delight in doing all in her power for Mrs. Pipkin and her family. She gave toys to the children, and absolutely bestowed upon Mrs. Pipkin a new carpet for the drawing-room. Then Mr. Fisker came and took her away with him to America; and Mrs. Pipkin was left,—a desolate but grateful woman.

"They do tell bad things about them Americans," she said to a friend in the street, "and I don't pretend to know. But for a lodger, I only wish Providence would send me another just like the one I have lost. She had that good nature about her she liked to see the bairns eating pudding just as if they was her own."

I think Mrs. Pipkin was right, and that Mrs. Hurtle, with all her faults, was a good-natured woman.