"Oh! gracious, good 'eavens!" she piped shrilly, "as to what your mar will say, Miss Megs, I don't know, a-kissin' strange gents in the h'open street; not but what he don't deserve it, a-dragin' you from under the ingine, as oughtn't to be let run to spile--"
"Hold your tongue, Bliggings," said Ezra sharply; "you ought to look more carefully after Meg, or she'll be killed some day."
"Oh! gracious and good 'eavens!" cried Bliggings sniffing, "if it ain't Mr. Lazarhouse; and, beggin' your pardon, sir, it ain't my fault, as is well known to you as children will 'ookit unbeknown't to the most wary."
"There, there," said Lazarus, bending down to kiss Meg; "least said, soonest mended; thanks to my friend here, it's no worse."
"Which he ought to git a meddler," asserted Miss Bliggings, on whose feminine heart Keith's handsome face had made an impression. "But, gracious and good 'eavens, they only gives 'em for drowndin', though I never lets Miss Megs go near water, ingines bein' unexpected in their actions, and not to be counted on in their movin's."
"Good-bye, Meg," said Lazarus, cutting short Bliggings in despair. "Tell your mamma I'll call and see her about this."
"And bring the man," said Meg, glancing at Keith.
"Yes, and bring the man," repeated Ezra, upon which Meg, being satisfied, made a quaint-like curtsey to both men, and was going away, when she suddenly came back, and pulling Keith's coat till he bent down, put her arms round his neck and kissed him.
"Mumsey will be nice," she murmured, and then trotted quietly off with Bliggings, who kept expressing her opinion that, "Oh! gracious, good 'eavens! she was red up to her eyes at such conduct," a somewhat unnecessary assertion, seeing her complexion was permanently the colour of beetroot.
"Come into Lane's Hotel and have a glass of brandy," said Ezra, when Meg and her attendant had disappeared; "you need it after the shaking you have had."