“Miss Annella, dear, I just dropped in to say if so be you are awaiting up for the captain, you may as well go to bed, because, if he comes home to-night—which is very uncertain, you know—I can just let him in myself.”
“Thank you, dear, kind Mrs. Corder; you are really too good for this wicked world! But you are tired with this day’s work, and you need your full night’s rest to prepare you for to-morrow’s; therefore, you see you must go to bed and go to sleep. As for me, I have got an interesting book here, and I could not leave it until I get to the end of it if it were to save my life! So sitting up will be no act of self-denial on my part.”
“La, now! what sort of a book is it as can keep a young gal out of her bed at this time o’night?” inquired the landlady, with interest.
“It is the history of a brave boy, that took his father’s crime upon his own childish shoulders, and ran away to draw off the chase from his father’s house, and threw himself upon the world to seek his fortune! Yes, and he will find it too; or, at least, I shall not lay the book down until he does.”
“Lawk! I wonder if it is true?”
“To be sure it is true; every word of it is true. It is too good not to be true!” replied the girl, enthusiastically.
“Well, I declare!”
“Oh, how I wish I was a boy!”
“Lawk, Miss Annella?”
“Yes, I do! Oh, don’t I wish I was a boy! If I were, oh, wouldn’t I go and seek my fortune, too!”