Our Gentleman Boarder 



Mary, full of her business and anxious 

 that Sukle should get about hers, asked a 

 little quickly where lay the joke, and went 

 to her hemming with great energy. 



Sukle looked the least defiantly at my 

 Mother, and said, '' You may laugh, Mrs. 

 Hyde, but, for all that, I believe It's a kind 

 of tempting of Providence." 



''She means," said my Mother, "she 

 means — O Mary, only just round the 

 Market," and off she went again, so that I 

 caught the Infection and rolled on the 

 carpet with laughing. 



" Does Mother mean," said Mary, be- 

 ginning to smile herself, and, with an eye 

 to the spotlessness of my breeks, raising 

 me from the floor, '' that you were afraid to 

 go round the Market ? " 



" She do^' said Sukle, ''and quite right 

 too. So I was ; and so I am. What with 

 the crossing of the roads, which alone Is 

 only fit for horses and carts, and then In 

 the market with folk on this side of you, 

 and folk on that, and folk a-foolin' all 

 round, why, why it's enough to make a 

 sober woman feel like t'other kind ! " 



" Haven't you ever been into the New 



Market before?" chimed in I, all a-grin, 



and knowing quite well that she never 



went elsewhere than to her father. " Why, 



no 



