THE WIDOWER’S SECOND WOOING.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1041, 1 June 1883, Page 4

THE WIDOWER’S SECOND WOOING.

LITERATURE.

I thanked her, and proceeded to Mr Morbid, a pale, thin, meek little man, who, having walked me about his house, agreed, as the lodgings suited me, to let me have them, with cooking and; attendance, for three guineas a week. I dined at the hotel, and had my luggage to my apartments, where I drank tea, and then wrote a letter to Mrs Millington, expressive of ray regret at not finding her at Cowes, and my anxiety for their return. Not a word did I say about that which was uppermost in my thoughts—Anna Maria’s accession of fortune; but with an ' assurance of my disinterested attachment for her daughter, f brought my epistle to a close, and directed it to Mrs Millington, B Hotel, C—— Street, London. The next morning I ordered a dinner, plain but good, and then went forth to enjoy the beauty of the scenery. At my dinner hour I returned with a .very excellent appetite, and ordered up roast fowl, oyster sauce and potatoes. Up " they flew, or rather I should say that I wonder my fowl did not fly into the apartment, as it had never been trussed, but had been simply suspended by its head before the fire, in a state of nnsophistication, with its .legs and wings hanging loose; and now it lay sprawling on the dish, more like an expiring frog than a barn-door fowl; the potatoes, though healed, certainly were not boiled ; and the oysters, plunged in melted butter, gave evidence that the individual who called herself cook (if there really was such a pretender in the house) had no intention of giving me any of her sauce, This won’t do, thought I, so I walked down to Mr Morbid’s back parlour, and requested to speak to.hira. He entered the apartment, stroking down his hair on his forehead in a forlorn manner. : I began to explain my culinary distresses, and Mr Morbid listened with a patient countenance, when the door opened, and in came a lady, taller by a head and shoulders than Mr Morbid, whom he falteringly introduced to me as , his wife. I bowed, and then coptinned my complaint; and Mr Morbid, perhaps struck by the hungry look which - I involuntarily wore, began an apologetic reply, but Mrs Morbid stopped him with a vehement exclamation. ./Don’t listen to Mr M. Mr M. don’t speak. He knows nothing,. Sir- —1 I settles it all. I means to dress the gentleman’s dinner to-morrow.’ Now Mrs Morbid was a strapping ■ dame, in a silk gown, with a muslin cape,.a flyaway lace cap with artificial flpwers, and yellow diacnlum shoes. -• ‘ You dress my dinner, madam i’ said I; * that is out of the question.’ Bnt expostulation was vain ! and Mrs Morbid; in the absence of the real cook, who, I believe,-had the flenzy, was to perform the part as an amateur. Alas I day after day, I grumbled over an ill-dressed dinner. On inquiry, I found that the kitchen grate had been unfairly diminished by .the insertion of iron plates on either side. The fire, in fact, looked os if it had been laced into a tight pair of stays, the ribs seemed compressed and the vital: spark almost extinct. I needed no moralist to remind me of the littleness of the grate. I. soon ascertained that, at the apothecary’s lodgings I * had no chance of a dinner unless I could literally,make up my mind to live upon rhubarb tart. . Brit what were all these minor anxieties to one who daily looked ’ for a letter from his sonl’s idol ? Could I expect to relish food ? At length it came, not precisely the reply 1 had expected, brit still, nothing ■ actually to damp my ardour. We had parted suddenly, and in circmristarices mast.painfnl to all parties.- Nearly three years had since elapsed ; and it was something to find her still unmarried, still 'disengaged, iStjll willing to meet me at beremptfler’s; house. In fact what more ' could: I expect ? I read the letter a seepnd time, kissed-it,; and sat down to a medicated mutton-pie with a very tolerable appetite. . “ Mrs and Miss Millington, accompanied by Miss Chumps, in due course of time arrived from London; and I vvas summoned to their temporary resi- , derice', Pigmy Yilia. . ; Again I stood in the very little garden, again I knocked at the door of the Very small house; and again .it was opened by the handmaid who had already indulged me with an interview, I - tyaa admitted, and shown into the very smallest parlour I ever saw in my life. : I sat there in great agitation for Some time ; and then the door opened, and Miss Arina Marin, ray ci-devant betrothed, stood before me. I was very much agitated, and for the first ten minutes I could talk of nothing but the weather and the * Jlenzy,' bnt she had more courage than myself, and she soon came to the point. * It is some time since we met, Mr Daffodil/said she. (To be continued.)