She did not think, she added, that she could long survive the separations, but, as she was hated and looked upon unpleasant, perhaps her dying as soon as possible would be the best endings for all parties.

With this affecting conclusion, Miss Miggs shed more tears, and sobbed abundantly.
'Can you bear this, Varden ?' said his wife in a solemn voice, laying down her knife and fork.
'Why, not very well, my dear,' rejoined the locksmith, 'but I try to keep my temper.' 'Don't let there be words on my account, mim,' sobbed Miggs.

'It's much the best that we should part.

I wouldn't stay--oh, gracious me!--and make dissensions, not for a annual gold mine, and found in tea and sugar.' Lest the reader should be at any loss to discover the cause of Miss Miggs's deep emotion, it may be whispered apart that, happening to be listening, as her custom sometimes was, when Gabriel and his wife conversed together, she had heard the locksmith's joke relative to the foreign black who played the tambourine, and bursting with the spiteful feelings which the taunt awoke in her fair breast, exploded in the manner we have witnessed.

Matters having now arrived at a crisis, the locksmith, as usual, and for the sake of peace and quietness, gave in.
'What are you crying for, girl ?' he said.