"Mercy on us! but it can't be asses, wench: drive your spe-ad into't again."

"'Now -- Fatther -- if -- you -- leave -- a s-h-i-l-l-i-n-g, shilling -- at --Hardie's -- after -- this -- b-l-a-m-e, ble-am -- your -- self -- not-- me -- for -- this -- is -- the -- waie -- the r-o-g-u-e-s, rogews -- all-- bre-ak -- they -- go -- at -- a-- d-i-s-t-a-n-c-e, distance -- first-- and -- then -- at -- h-o-m-e, whuoame. -- Dear -- fatther' -- Lawk o' daisy, what ails you, Daddy Maxley? You be as white as a Sunday smock. Be you poisoned again, if _you_ please?"

"Worse than that--worse!" groaned Maxhey, trembling all over. "Hush!--hold your tongue! Give me that letter! Don't you never tell nobody nothing of what you have been a reading to me, and I'll--I'll--It's only Jem's fun: he is allus running his rigs--that's a good wench now, and I'll give ye a halfpenny."

"La, Daddy," said the child, opening her eyes, "I never heeds what I _re-ads:_ I be wrapped up in the spelling. Dear heart, what a sight of long words folks puts in a letter, more than ever drops out of their mouths; which their fingers be longer than their tongues, I do suppose."

Maxley hailed thus information characteristically. "Then we'll say no more about the halfpenny."

At this, Rose raised a lamentable cry, and pearly tears gushed forth.

"There, there!" said Maxley, deprecatingly; "here's two apples for ye; ye can't get them for less: and a halfpenny or a haporth is all one to you, but it is a great odds to me. And apples they rot; halfpence don't."

It was now nine o'clock. The bank did not open till ten; but Maxley went and hung about the door, to be the first applicant.