"My father he has locked the door,
My mother keeps the key:
But neither bolts nor bars shall part
My own true love and me."
"It is him!" gasped Mrs. Susan Sharpe. "Oh, good gracious!"
"Good-day to you, my strapping, lass. How do you find yourself this blessed morning?"
Susan Sharpe knew there were listening ears and looking eyes in the kitchen, and for their benefit she retorted:
"It's no business of yours how I am! Be off with you! We don't allow no vagrants here!"
"But I ain't a vagrant, my duck o' diamonds. I'm a respectable Yankee peddler, trying to turn an honest penny by selling knickknacks to the fair sect. Do let me in, there's a pretty dear! You hain't no idee of the lovely things I've got in my pack—all dirt cheap, too!"
"I don't want nothing," said Mrs. Susan Sharpe.
"But your ma does, my love, or your elder sister, which I see 'em at the winder this minute. Now do go, there's a lamb, and ask your ma if I mayn't come in."
Mrs. Sharpe dropped her basket in a pet and stalked back to the house.
"It's a peddler-man," she said, crossly, "a-wanting to come in. I told him he couldn't, and it's of no use; and the best thing you can do is to set the dogs on him."