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EXERCISES FOR READING.

I-CLANDESTINE INTERVIEWS.

Sam continued to sit on the large stone, meditating upon what was best to be done, and revolving in his mind a plan for knocking at all the doors within five miles of Bristol, taking them at a hundred and fifty or two hundred a day, and endeavoring to find Miss Arabella by that expedient, when ́accident all of a sudden threw in his way what he might have set there for a twelvemonthand yet not found without it.

Into the lane where he sat opened three or four garden gates, belonging to as many houses which, though detached from each other, were only separated by their gardens. As these were large and long, and well planted with trees, the houses were not only at some distance off, but the greater part of them were nearly concealed from view. Sam was sitting with his eyes fixed upon the dust-heap outside the next gate to that by which the groom had disappeared, profoundly turning over in his mind the difficulties of his present undertaking, when the gate opened, and a female servant came out into the lane to shake some bed-side carpets.

Sam was very busy with his own thoughts, so that it is probable he would have taken no more notice of the young woman than just raising his head and remarking that she had a very neat and pretty figure, if his feelings of gallantry had not been most strongly roused by observing that she had no one to help her, and that the carpets seemed too heavy for her single strength. Mr. Weller was a gentleman of great gallantry in his own way, and he no sooner remarked this circumstance than he hastily rose from the large stone, and advanced toward her.

"My dear," said Sam, sliding up with an air of great respect, "you' ll spile that wery pretty figure out o' all perportion if you shake them carpets by yourself. Let me help you."

The young lady, who had been coyly affecting not to know that a gentleman was so near, turned round as Sam spoke-no doubt (indeed she said so afterward) to decline this offer from a perfect stranger-when instead of speaking, she started back, and uttered a half-suppressed scream. Sam was scarcely less staggered, for in the countenance of the well-shaped female

servant he beheld the very features of his Valentine-the pretty housemaid from Mr. Nupkins's.

"Wy, Mary my dear!" said Sam.

Lauk, Mr. Weller," said Mary, "how you do frighten one!"

Sam made no verbal answer to this complaint, nor can we precisely say what reply he did make. We merely know that after a short pause Mary said, "Lor, do adun, Mr. Weller," and that his hat had fallen off a few moments before-from both of which tokens we should be disposed to infer that one kiss, or more, had passed between the parties.

"Why, how did you come here?" said Mary, when the conversation, to which this interruption had been offered, was resumed.

"O' course I came to look arter you, my darlin,” replied Mr. Weller; for once permitting his passion to get the better of his veracity.

"And how did you know I was here?" inquired Mary. "Who could have told you that I took another service at Ipswich,-and that they afterward moved all the way here? Who could have told you that, Mr. Weller?"

"Ah, to be sure," said Sam, with a cunning look, "that's the pint. Who could ha' told me?"

"It was n't Mr. Muzzle, was it?" inquired Mary.

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Oh, no," replied Sam, with a solemn shake of the head, "it war n't him." "It must have been the cook," said Mary.

"O' course it must," said Sam.

"Well, I never heard the like of that?" exclaimed Mary.

"No more did I," said Sam. "But Mary, my dear-" here Sam's manners grew extremely affectionate-" Mary, my dear, I've got another affair in hand as is wery pressin'. There's one o' my governor's friends-Mr. Winkle-you remember him."

"Him in the green coat?" said Mary. "Oh,yes, I remember him." "Well," said Sam, "he's in a horrid state o' love; reg'larly comfoozled, and done over vith it."

"Lor!" interposed Mary.

"Yes," said Sam; "but that's nothin', if we could only find the young 'ooman"-and here Sam, with many digressions upon the personal beauty of Mary, and the unspeakable tortures he had experienced since he last saw her, gave a faithful account of Mr. Winkle's present predicament.

"Well," said Mary, "I never did!”

"O' course not," said Sam, "and nobody never did, nor never vill neither; and here am I a walkin' about like the wanderin' Jew-a sportin' character you have perhaps heerd on, Mary, my dear, as wos always doin' a match agin' time, and never vent to sleep-looking arter this Miss Arabella Allen." "Miss who?" said Mary, in great astonishment.

"Miss Arabella Allen," said Sam.

"Goodness gracious!" said Mary, pointing to the garden-door which the sulky groom had locked after him. "Why it's that very house; she's been living there these six weeks. Their upper housemaid, which is lady's maid too, told me all about it over the wash-house palins before the family was out of bed, one mornin'."

"Wot, the wery next door to you?" said Sam. "The very next," replied Mary.

Mr. Weller was so deeply overcome at receiving this intelligence that he found it absolutely necessary to cling to his fair informant for support, and divers little love passages had passed between them before he was sufficiently collected to return to the subject.

"Vell," said Sam at length, "if this do n't beat cock-fightin', nothin' never vill, as the Lord Mayor said ven the chief secretary o' state proposed his missis's health arter dinner. That wery next house! Wy, I've got a message to her as I've been a tryin' all day to deliver."

“Ah,” said Mary; "but you can 't deliver it now, because she only walks in the garden in the evening, and then only for a very little time; she never goes out without the old lady."

Sam ruminated for a few moments, and finally hit upon the following plan of operations: that he should return just at dusk-the time at which Arabella invariably took her walk—and, being admitted by Mary into the garden of the house to which she belonged, contrive to scramble up the wall, beneath the overhanging boughs of a large pear-tree, which would effectually screen him from observation; there deliver his message, and arrange, if possible, an interview on behalf of Mr. Winkle for the ensuing evening at the same hour. Having made this arrangement with great dispatch, he assisted Mary in the long-deferred occupation of shaking the carpets.

It is not half as innocent a thing as it looks, that shaking little pieces of carpet at least, there may be no great harm in the shaking, but the folding is a very insidious process. So long as the shaking lasts, and the two parties are kept the carpet's length apart, it is as innocent an amusement as can well be devised, but when the folding begins, and the distance between them gets gradually lessened from one half its former length to a quarter, and then to an eighth, and then to a sixteenth, and then to a thirty-second if the carpet be long enough, it becomes dangerous. We do not know to a nicety how many pieces of carpet were folded in this instance, but we can venture to state that as many pieces as there were, so many times did Sam kiss the pretty housemaid.

Mr. Weller regaled himself with moderation at the nearest tavern until it was nearly dusk, and then returned to the lane without the thoroughfare. Having been admitted into the garden by Mary, and having received from that lady sundry admonitions concerning the safety of his limbs and neck, Sam mounted into the pear-tree to wait until Arabella should come into sight.

He waited so long without this anxiously expected event occurring that he began to think it was not going to take place at all, when he heard light footsteps upon the gravel, and immediately afterward beheld Arabella walking pensively down the garden. As soon as she came nearly below the tree, Sam began, by way of gently indicating his presence, to make sundry diabolical noises, similar to those which would probably be natural to a person who had been afflicted with a combination of inflammatory sore-throat, croup, and hooping-cough from his earliest infancy.

Upon this the young lady cast a hurried glance toward the spot from whence the dreadful sounds proceeded; and her previous alarm being not at all diminished when she saw a man among the branches, she would most certainly have decamped, and alarmed the house, had not fear fortunately deprived her of the power of moving, and caused her to sink down on a garden-seat which happened by good luck to be near at hand.

"She's a goin' off," soliloquized Sam, in great perplexity. "Wot a thing it is, as these here young creeturs will go a faintin' avay just ven they ought n't to. Here, young 'ooman, Miss Sawbones, Mrs. Vinkle, do n't.

Whether it was the magic of Mr. Winkle's name, or the coolness of the open air, or some recollection of Mr. Weller's voice, that revived Arabella, matters not. She raised her head, and languidly inquired-"Who's that, and what do you want?"

"Hush," said Sam, swinging himself on to the wall, and crouching there in as small a compass as he could reduce himself to, "only me, Miss, only me." “Mr. Pickwick's servant!" said Arabella, earnestly.

"The wery same, Miss," replied Sam. "Here's Mr. Vinkle reg'larly sewed up with desperation, Miss."

"Ah!" said Arabella, drawing nearer the wall.

"Ah, indeed," said Sam. "Ve thought ve should ha' been obliged to straight-veskit him last night; he's been a ravin' all day, and he says if he can't see you afore to-morrow night's over, he vishes he may be somethin' unpleasanted if he do n't drown hisself."

"Oh, no, no, Mr. Weller," said Arabella, clasping her hands.

"That's wot he says, Miss," replied Sam, coolly. "He's a man of his word, and it's my opinion he'll do it, Miss. He's heerd about you from the Sawbones in barnacles."

"From my brother!" said Arabella, having some faint recognition of Sam's description.

"I don't rightly know which is your brother," replied Sam. "Is it the dirtiest vun o' the two?"

"Yes, yes, Mr. Weller," returned Arabella, "go on. Make haste, pray."

"Vell, Miss," said Sam, "he's heerd all about it from him; and it's the gov'nor's opinion that if you do n't see him wery quick, the Sawbones as we've been a speakin' on 'ull get as much extra lead in his head as 'll rayther damage the dewelopment o' the orgins if they ever put it in spirits artevards." "Oh, what can I do to prevent these dreadful quarrels!" exclaimed Arabella.

"It's the suspicion of a priory 'tachment as is the cause of it all," replied Sam. "You'd better see him, Miss."

"But how?-where?" cried Arabella. "I dare not leave the house. alone. My brother is so unkind, so unreasonable. I know how strange my talking thus to you must appear, Mr. Weller, but I am very, very unhappy-" and here poor Arabella wept so bitterly that Sam grew chivalrous.

"It may seem wery strange talkin' to me about these here affairs, Miss," said Sam, with great vehemence; "but all I can say is, that I'm not only ready, but villin' to do anythin' as 'll make matters agreeable; and if chuckin' either o' them Sawbones out o" winder 'ull do it, I'm the man." As Sam Weller said this, he tucked up his wristbands, at the imminent hazard of falling off the wall in so doing, to intimate his readiness to set to work immediately.

Flattering as these professions of good feeling were, Arabella resolutely declined (most unaccountably, as Sam thought) to avail herself of them. For some time she strenuously refused to grant Mr. Winkle the interview Sam had so pathetically requested; but at length, when the conversation threatened to be interrupted by the unwelcome arrival of a third party, she hurriedly gave

him to understand, with many professions of gratitude, that it was barely possible she might be in the garden an hour later next evening. Sam understood this perfectly well, and Arabella, bestowing upon him one of her sweetest smiles, tripped gracefully away, leaving Mr. Weller in a state of very great admiration of her charms, both personal and mental.

Having descended in safety from the wall, and not forgotten to devote a few moments to his own particular business in the same department, Mr. Weller then made the best of his way back to the Bush, where his prolonged absence had occasioned much speculation and some alarm.

"We must be careful," said Mr. Pickwick, after listening attentively to Sam's tale, "not for our own sakes, but for that of the young lady. We must be very cautious."

"We!" said Mr. Winkle, with marked emphasis.

Mr. Pickwick's momentary look of indignation at the tone of this remark subsided into his characteristic expression of benevolence as he replied, "We, sir! I shall accompany you."

"You!" said Mr. Winkle.

"I" replied Mr. Pickwick mildly. "In affording you this interview the young lady has taken a natural, perhaps, but still a very imprudent step. If I am present at the meeting—a mutual friend, who is old enough to be the father of both parties-the voice of calumny can never be raised against her hereafter."

Mr. Pickwick's eyes lightened with honest exultation at his own foresight, as he spoke thus. Mr. Winkle was touched at this little trait of his delicate respect for the young protégé of his friend, and took his hand with a feeling of regard akin to veneration.

"You shall go," said Mr. Winkle.

"I will," said Mr. Pickwick. "Sam, have my great-coat and shawl ready, and order a conveyance to be at the door to-morrow evening rather earlier than is absolutely necessary, in order that we may be in good time.”

Mr. Weller touched his hat as an earnest of his obedience, and withdrew to make all needful preparations for the expedition.

The coach was punctual to the time appointed, and Mr. Weller, after duly installing Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle inside, took his seat on the box by the driver. They alighted, as had been agreed on, about a quarter of a mile from the place of rendezvous, and desiring the coachman to await their return proceeded the remaining distance on foot.

It was at this stage of the undertaking that Mr. Pickwick, with many smiles and various other indications of great self-satisfaction, produced from one of his coat-pockets a dark lantern, with which he had specially provided himself for the occasion, and the great mechanical beauty of which he proceeded to explain to Mr. Winkle as they walked along, to the no small surprise of the few stragglers they met.

"I should have been the better for something of this kind in my last garden expedition at night, eh, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick, looking good-humoredly round at his follower, who was trudging behind.

"Wery nice things if they're managed properly, sir," replied Mr. Weller; "but if you don't want to be seen I think they're more useful arter the candle's gone out than ven it's alight?"

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