"Well, if I do," half screamed the old woman, "I do more than the men do. And haven't you been carried off after all? Oh! oh!" and Biddy wheezed and chuckled like an old grey ape.
"Ma'm!" and Lauretta looked a vestal, "I am not aware, ma'm, what you mean."
"What! not of the officer on the piebald horse?" Biddy's countenance changed, and she turned white with passion as she added, "And that beggar's slut of mine, I'll teach her to cross me!" But, as her eye rested upon Lauretta, her face changed again, and pursed into a thousand wrinkles as she chuckled, "How long did you wait? Oh! oh!" and she gloated on the wincing countenance of her next-door neighbour.
"Mrs. Tibs!" and Lauretta spoke with the conscious dignity of a Cleopatra; "I have had a strange thought about Laura, and I am afraid we have made a little mistake."
"Mistake!" and Biddy's eyes opened like an owl's.
"Yes; for, after the officer kissed his hand, I opened the window, and there I saw that good-for-nothing girl of yours looking after him, and he might have blown his filthy kisses to her; and last night,—I won't be certain,—but I think I saw her coming down the 'Mount' with a man, and he looked very like my dear Augus——"
The countenance of Biddy fell, and her skin became lead as she gasped, "Bat that I was not to see it; that letter was for her after all!"
"Instead of me!" and Lauretta waxed wrathful as she added, "She heard us read it through the key-hole. I thought I heard a titter."
Let us not mistake the passion of Biddy Tibs; it was not the ruin of her niece grieved her,—no! she could get another servant from the workhouse; but she had fattened on the idea that, Lucretia as Lauretta was, she had at length stumbled on a Tarquin!—it was wine and oil to her heart. But, to find herself cozened, to have hatched the wrong egg!—her fury knew no bounds. She raved, and—we trust, for the first time in her life—uttered curses, and in so wild a scream that neighbours came running to her assistance; when, lashed by her own temper, the amiable Biddy Tibs fell down in a swoon, having burst a blood-vessel, and was carried to bed.