"Very good, ma'am. I'll have a little conversation with you, if you please;"—and the stranger stepped into the passage.
Mrs. Smith conducted him into her little parlour, and inquired his business.
"Mine, ma'am," was the answer, "is a professional visit—entirely a professional visit, ma'am. Alas! ma'am," continued the stranger, casting his eyes upwards in a most dolorous manner, and taking a dirty white handkerchief from his pocket,—"alas! ma'am, I understand you have had a sad loss here?"
"A lodger of mine, sir, is dead," said Mrs. Smith, somewhat surprised at the display of sorrow which she now beheld, and very naturally expecting that her visitor would prove to be a relation of the deceased.
"Ah! ma'am, we're all mortal!" exclaimed the stranger, with a mournful shake of the head, and a truly pitiful turning up of the whites of his eyes: "we're all mortal, ma'am; and howsomever high and mighty we may be in this life, the grave at last must have our carkisses!"
"Very true, sir," said the good woman, putting the corner of her apron to her eyes; for the reflection of the stranger called to her mind the loss she had experienced in the deceased Mr. Smith.
"Alas! it's too true, ma'am," continued the stranger, applying his handkerchief to his face, to suppress, as the widow thought, a sob: "but it is to be hoped, ma'am, that your lodger has gone to a better speer, where there's no cares to wex him—and no rent to pay!"
"I hope so too, most sincerely, sir," said Mrs. Smith, wondering when the gentleman would announce the precise terms of relationship in which he stood to the deceased. "But, might I inquire—"
"Yes, ma'am, you may inquire anything you choose," said the stranger, with another solemn shake of his head—in consequence of which a great deal of wet was thrown over Mrs. Smith's furniture; "for I know you by name, Mrs. Smith—I know you well by reputation—as a respectable, kind-hearted, and pious widder; and I feel conwinced that your treatment to the poor lamented deceased—" here the stranger shook his head again, and groaned audibly—"was every thing that it ought to be in this blessed land of Christian comfort!"