Might I take a turn with the roller, and make myself useful about the place until nightfall, for ninepence ?" Miss Wilson, who was expecting more than her usual Saturday visitors, considered the proposition and assented.

"And remember," she said, "that as you are a stranger here, your character in Lyvern depends upon the use you make of this opportunity." "I am grateful to your noble ladyship.

May your ladyship's goodness sew up the hole which is in the pocket where I carry my character, and which has caused me to lose it so frequent.

It's a bad place for men to keep their characters in; but such is the fashion.

And so hurray for the glorious nineteenth century!" He took off his coat, seized the roller, and began to pull it with an energy foreign to the measured millhorse manner of the accustomed laborer.