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ful, thrifty body, a perfect woman of business, with a sharp gray eye to the main chance, a quick ear for the ring of good or bad metal, and a close hand at the counter. Indeed, she was apt to give such scrimp weight and measure, that her customers invariably manoeuvred to be served by her daughter, who was supposed to be more liberal at the scale, by a full ounce in the pound. The man and maid servants it is true, who bought on commission, did not care much about the matter; but the poor hungry father, the poor frugal mother, the little ragged girl, and the little dirty boy, all retained their pence in their hands, till they could thrust them, with their humble requests for ounces or half-ounces of tea, brown sugar, or single Gloster, towards « Miss Mullins, who was supposed to better their dealings, if dealings they might be called, where no deal of any thing was purchased. She was a tall, bony female, of about thirty years of age, but apparently forty, with a very homely set of features, and the staid, sedate carriage of a spinster who feels herself to be set in for a single life. There was indeed no love nonsense » about her; and as to romance, she had looked into a novel or read a line of poetry in her life-her thoughts, her feelings, her actions, were all like her occupation, of the most plain, prosaic character-the retailing of soap, starch, sandpaper, red-herrings, and Flanders brick. Except Sundays, when she went twice to chapel, her days were divided between the little back-parlour and the front shop-between a patchwork counterpane which she had been stitching at for ten long years, and that other counter work to which she was summoned, every few minutes, by the importunities of a little bell, that rang every customer in, like the new year, and then rang him out again like the old one. It was her province, moreover, to set down all unready money orders on a slate, but the widow took charge of the books, or rather the book, in which every item of account was entered, with a rigid punctuality that would have done honour to a regular counting-house clerk.

never so much as

Under such management the little chandler's-shop was a thriving concern, and with the frugal, not to say parsimonious

habits of mother and daughter, enabled the former to lay by annually her one or two hundred pounds, so that miss Mullins was in a fair way of becoming a fortune, when towards the autumn of 1838 the widow was suddenly taken ill at her book, in the very act of making out a little bill, which alas she never lived to sum up. The disorder progressed so rapidly that on the second day she was given over by the doctor, and on the third by the apothecary, having lost all power of swallowing his medicines. The distress of her daughter, thus threatened with the sudden rending of her only tie in the world, may be conceived; while, to add to her affliction, her dying parent, though perfectly sensible, was unable, from a paralysis of the organs of speech, to articulate a single word. She tried nevertheless to speak, with a singular perseverance, but all her struggles for utterance were in vain. Her eyes rolled frightfully, the muscles about the mouth worked convulsively, and her tongue actually writhed till she foamed at the lips, but without producing more than such an unintelligible sound as is sometimes heard from the deaf and dumb. It was evident from the frequency and vehemence of these efforts that she had something of the last importance to communicate, and which her weeping daughter at last implored her to make known by means of signs.

Had she any thing weighing heavy on her mind? » The sick woman nodded her head.

Did she want any one to be sent for?"

The head was shaken.

Was it about making her will?.

Another mute negative.

Did she wish to have further medical advice? »

A gesture of great impatience.

"Would she try to write down her meaning?

The head nodded, and the writing-materials were immediately procured. The dying woman was propped up in bed, a lead-pencil was placed in her right-hand, and a quire of foolscap was set before her. With extreme difficulty she contrived to scribble the single word MARY; but before she could form another letter, the hand suddenly dropped, scratching

a long mark, like what the Germans call a Devotion Stroke, from the top to the bottom of the paper,-her face assumed an intense expression of despair-there was a single deep groan -then a heavy sigh-and the Widow Mullins was a corpse!

CHAP. III.

And

. Gracious! How shocking! cries Morbid Curiosity. to die, too, without telling her secret! What could the poor creature have on her mind to lay so heavy! I'd give the world to know what it was! A shocking murder, perhaps, and the remains of her poor Husband buried Lord knows where so that nobody can enjoy the horrid discovery― and the digging of him up!»

No, madam-nor the boiling and parboiling of his viscera to detect traces of poison.

To be sure not. It's a sin and shame, it is, for people to go out of the world with such mysteries confined to their own bosom. But perhaps it was only a hoard of money that she had saved up in private ? »

Very possibly, madam. In fact, Mrs. Humphreys, the carpenter's wife, who was present at the death, was so firmly of that persuasion, that before the body was cold, although not the Searcher, she had exercised a right of search in every pot, pan, box, basket, drawer, cup-board, chimney-in short, every hole and corner in the premises.

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«Ay, and I'll be bound discovered a heap of golden guineas in an old teapot.

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No, madam not a dump. At least, not in the teapot but in a hole near the sink-she found

"What, Sir?-pray what? »

Two black-beetles, ma'am, and a money-spinner.

CHAP. IV.

Well, the corpse of the deceased Widow received the usual rites. It was washed-laid out-and according to old provincial custom, strewed with rosemary and other sweet herbs. A plate full of salt was placed on the chest-one lighted candle

H

was set near the head, and another at the feet, whilst the Mrs. Humphreys, before mentioned, undertook to sit up through the night and « watch the body. A half-dozen of female neighbours also volunteered their services, and sat in the little back-parlour by way of company for the bereaved daughter, who, by the mere force of habit, had caught up and begun mechanically to stitch at the patchwork-counterpane, with one corner of which she occasionally and absently wiped her eyes -the action strangely contrasting with such a huge and Harlequin handkerchief. In the discourse of the gossips she took no part or interest, in reality she did not hear the conversation, her ear still seeming painfully on the stretch to catch those last dying words which her poor mother had been unable to utter. In her mind's eye she was still watching those dreadful contortions which disfigured the features of her dying parent during her convulsive efforts to speak - she still saw those desperate attempts to write, and then that leaden fall of the cold hand, and the long scratch of the random pencil that broke off for ever and ever the mysterious revelation. A more romantic or ambitious nature would perhaps have fancied that the undivulged secret referred to her own birth; a more avaricious spirit might have dreamed that the disclosure related to hidden treasure; and a more suspicious character might have even supposed that the dead had suppressed some confession of undiscovered guilt.

But the plain matter-of-fact mind of Mary Mullins was incapable of such speculations. Instead of dreaming, therefore, of an airy coronet, or ideal bundles of bank-notes, or pots full of gold and silver coin, or a disinterred sketelon, she only stitched on, and then wept, and then stitched on again at the motley coverlet, wondering amongst her other vague wonders why no little dirty boys, or ragged little girls, came as usual for penny candles and rushlights. The truth being that the gossips had muffled up the shop-bell, for vulgar curiosity had caused a considerable influx of extra custom, so that thanks to another precaution in suppressing noises, the chandler's-shop presented the strange anomaly of a roaring trade carried on in a whisper.

Owing to this circumstance it was nearly midnight before the shop-shutters were closed, the street-door was locked, the gas turned off, and the sympathizing females prepared to sit down to a light, sorrowful supper of tripe and onions.

In the mean time the candles in the little back-parlour had burned down to the socket, into which one glimmering wick at last suddenly plunged, and was instantly drowned in a warm bath of liquid grease. This trivial incident sufficed to arouse Miss Mullins from her fearful stupor; she quietly put down the patchwork, and without speaking passed into the shop, which was now pitch-dark, and with her hand began to grope for a bunch of long sixes, which she knew hung from a particular shelf. Indeed, she could blindfolded have laid her hand on any given article in the place; but her fingers had no sooner closed on the cold clammy tallow, than with a loud shrill scream that might have awakened the dead-if the dead were ever so awakened-she sank down on the sandy floor in a strong fit!

La! how ridiculous! What from only feeling a tallowcandle ? »

No, ma'am ; but from only seeing her Mother, in her habit as she lived, standing at her old favourite post in the shop; that is to say, at the little desk, between the great black coffee-mill and the barrel of red-herrings.

CHAP. V.

What! a Ghost-a regular Apparition?»

Yes, sir, a disembodied spirit, but clothed in some ethereal substance, not tangible, but of such a texture as to be visible to the ocular sense.

« Bah! ocular nonsense! All moonshine! Ghosts be hanged!-no such things in nature-too late in the day for them, by a whole century-quite exploded-went out with the old witches. No, no, sir, the ghosts have had their day, and were all laid long age, before the wood pavement. What should they come for? The potters and the colliers may rise for higher wages, and the chartists may rise for reform, and