I recollect one that was worked off, many year ago--and there was a gentleman in that case too--that says to me, with her lip a trembling, but her hand as steady as ever I see one: "Dennis, I'm near my end, but if I had a dagger in these fingers, and he was within my reach, I'd strike him dead afore me;"-- ah, she did--and she'd have done it too!' Strike who dead ?' demanded Hugh.
'How should I know, brother ?' answered Dennis.

'SHE never said; not she.' Hugh looked, for a moment, as though he would have made some further inquiry into this incoherent recollection; but Simon Tappertit, who had been meditating deeply, gave his thoughts a new direction.
'Hugh!' said Sim.

'You have done well to-day.

You shall be rewarded.
So have you, Dennis .-- There's no young woman YOU want to carry off, is there ?' 'N--no,' returned that gentleman, stroking his grizzly beard, which was some two inches long.

'None in partickler, I think.' 'Very good,' said Sim; 'then we'll find some other way of making it up to you.