“I've been laborin' for the master goin' on fourteen years; but I'm only about twelve months attendin' table.”
“How long has your fellow-servant—Peggy, I think, you call her—been here?”
“Not long.”
“Where had she been before, do you know.”
“Do I know, is it? Maybe 'tis you may say that.”
“What do you mean? I don't understand you.”
“I know that well enough, and it is n't my intention you should.”
“In what family was she at service.”
“Whisper;—in a bad family, wid one exception. God protect her, the darlin'. Amin! A wurra yeelsh! may the curse that's hanging over him never fall upon her this day!”
A kind and complacent spirit beamed in the fine eyes of the stranger, as the waiter uttered these benevolent invocations; and, putting his hand in his pocket, he said,