out behind, and him spattered wi' mud all ower, face and all! I tho't I should ha' dropped doon, and killed myself wi' laughing.'

John laughed so heartily at the mere recollection, that he communicated the contagion to both his hearers, and all three burst into peals of laughter, which were renewed again and again, until they could laugh no longer.

`He's a bad 'un,' said John, wiping his eyes; `a very bad 'un, is schoolmeasther.'

`I can't bear the sight of him, John,' said his wife.

`Coom,' retorted John, `thot's tidy in you, thot is. If it wa'nt along o' you, we shouldn't know nought aboot 'un. Thou know'd 'un first, Tilly, didn't thou?'

`I couldn't help knowing Fanny Squeers, John,' returned his wife; `she was an old playmate of mine, you know.'

`Weel,' replied John, `dean't I say so, lass? It's best to be neighbourly, and keep up old acquaintance loike; and what I say is, dean't quarrel if 'ee can help it. Dinnot think so, Mr Nickleby?'

`Certainly,' returned Nicholas; `and you acted upon that principle when I meet you on horseback on the road, after our memorable evening.'

`Sure-ly,' said John. `Wa'at I say, I stick by.'

`And that's a fine thing to do, and manly too,' said Nicholas, `though it's not exactly what we understand by "coming Yorkshire over us" in London. Miss Squeers is stopping with you, you said in your note.'

`Yes,' replied John, `Tilly's bridesmaid; and a queer bridesmaid she be, too. She wean't be a bride in a hurry, I reckon.'

`For shame, John,' said Mrs Browdie; with an acute perception of the joke though, being a bride herself.

`The groom will be a blessed mun,' said John, his eyes twinkling at the idea. `He'll be in luck, he will.'

`You see, Mr Nickleby,' said his wife, `that it was in consequence of her being here, that John wrote to you and fixed tonight, because we thought that it wouldn't be pleasant for you to meet, after what has passed--'

`Unquestionably. You were quite right in that,' said Nicholas, interrupting.

`Especially,' observed Mrs Browdie, looking very sly, `after what we know about past and gone love matters.'

`We know, indeed!' said Nicholas, shaking his head. `You behaved rather wickedly there, I suspect.'

`O' course she did,' said John Browdie, passing his huge forefinger through one of his wife's pretty ringlets, and looking very proud of her. `She wur always as skittish and full o' tricks as a--'

`Well, as a what?' said his wife.

`As a woman,' returned John. `Ding! But I dinnot know ought else that cooms near it.'

`You were speaking about Miss Squeers,' said Nicholas, with the view of stopping some slight connubialities which had begun to pass between Mr and Mrs Browdie, and which rendered the position of a third party in some degree embarrassing, as occasioning him to feel rather in the way than otherwise.