'I think it will go with him to his grave,' said Mrs. Smiley, very solemnly.
'I shouldn't wonder,' said Snengkeld.
'Then he must give up all idea of taking a wife,' said Moulder.
'He won't do that I'm sure,' said Mrs. Smiley.
'That he won't. Will you, John?' said his sister.
'There's no knowing what may happen to me in this world,' said Kenneby, 'but sometimes I almost think I aint fit to live in it, along with anybody else.'
'You'll make him fit, won't you, my dear?' said Mrs. Moulder.
'I don't exactly know what to say about it,' said Mrs. Smiley. 'If Mr. Kenneby aint willing, I'm not the woman to bind him to his word, because I've had his promise over and over again, and could prove it by a number of witnesses before any jury in the land. I'm a independent woman as needn't be beholden to any man, and I should never think of damages. Smiley left me comfortable before all the world, and I don't know but what I'm a fool to think of changing. Anyways if Mr. Kenneby———'
'Come, John. Why don't you speak to her?' said Mrs. Moulder.
'And what am I to say?' said Kenneby, thrusting himself forth from between the ample folds of the two ladies' dresses. 'I'm a blighted man; one on whom the finger of scorn has been pointed. His lordship said that I was———stupid; and perhaps I am.'
'She don't think nothing of that, John.'
'Certainly not,' said Mrs. Smiley.
'As long as a man can pay twenty shillings in the pound and a trifle over, what does it matter if all the judges in the land was to call him stupid?' said Snengkeld.
'Stupid is as stupid does,' said Kantwise.
'Stupid be d———,' said Moulder.
'Mr. Moulder, there's ladies present,' said Mrs. Smiley.
'Come, John, rouse yourself a bit,' said his sister. 'Nobody here thinks the worse of you for what the judge said.'
'Certainly not,' said Mrs. Smiley. 'And as it becomes me to speak, I'll say my mind. I'm accustomed to speak freely before friends, and as we are all friends here, why should I be ashamed?'
'For the matter of that nobody says you are,' said Moulder.
'And I don't mean, Mr. Moulder. Why should I? I can pay my way, and do what I like with my own, and has people to mind me when I speak, and needn't mind nobody else myself;—and that's more than everybody can say. Here's John Kenneby and I, is engaged as man and wife. He won't say as it's not so, I'll be bound.'
'No,' said Kenneby, 'I'm engaged I know.'
'When I accepted John Kenneby's hand and heart,—and well I remember the beauteous language in which he expressed his feelings, and always shall,—I told him, that I respected him as a
