instinct to abjure man as the blot on an otherwise kindly universe; till it was remembered that all terrestrial conditions were intermittent, and that mankind might some night be innocently sleeping when these quiet objects were raging loud. 

 “Where do the sailor live?” asked a spectator, when they had vainly gazed around. 

 “God knows that,” replied the man who had seen high life. “He’s without doubt a stranger here.” 

 “He came in about five minutes ago,” said the furmity woman, joining the rest with her hands on her hips. “And then ’a stepped back, and then ’a looked in again. I’m not a penny the better for him.” 

 “Serves the husband well be-right,” said the staylace vendor. “A comely respectable body like her—what can a man want more? I glory in the woman’s sperrit. I’d ha’ done it myself—od send if I wouldn’t, if a husband had behaved so to me! I’d go, and ’a might call, and call, till his keacorn was raw; but I’d never come back—no, not till the great trumpet, would I!” 

 “Well, the woman will be better off,” said another of a more deliberative turn. “For seafaring natures be very good shelter for shorn lambs, and the man do seem to have plenty of money, which is what she’s not been used to lately, by all showings.” 

 “Mark me—I’ll not go after her!” said the trusser, returning doggedly to his seat. “Let her go! If she’s up to such vagaries she must suffer for ’em. She’d no business to take the maid—’tis my maid; and if it were the doing again she shouldn’t have her!” 

 Perhaps from some little sense of having countenanced an indefensible proceeding, perhaps because it was late, the customers thinned away from the tent shortly after this episode. The man stretched his elbows forward on the table leant his face upon his arms, and soon began to snore. The furmity seller decided to close for the night, and after seeing the rum-bottles, milk, corn, raisins, etc., that remained on hand, loaded into the cart, came to where the man reclined. She shook him, but could not wake him. As the tent was not to be struck that night, the fair continuing for two or three days, she decided to let the sleeper, who was obviously no tramp, stay where he was, and his basket with him. Extinguishing the last candle, and lowering the flap of the tent, she left it, and drove away. 

 

II.

 The 

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