WYLDER'S HAJVD.
259
if you be, I can't help it, for I must speak. I've heard
it all — I heard you and Miss Radie speak on the night
you first came to see her after your sickness; and I heard
you speak again, by my room door, only a week before your
marriage, when you thought I was asleep. So I've heard
it all — and though I mayn't understand all the ins and
and outs on't, I know it well in the main. Oh, Master
Stanley, Master Stanley! How can you go on with
it?"
"Come, Tamar, what do you want of me?" What
do you mean? What the d — is it all about?"
"Oh ! well you know, Master Stanley, what it's about."
"Well, there is something unpleasant, and I suppose you
have heard a smattering of it in your muddled way; but
it is quite plain you don't in the least understand it, when
you fancy I can do anything to serve any one in the small-
est degree connected with that disagreeable business — or
that I am personally in the least to blame in it; and I
can't conceive what business you had listening at the key-
hole to your mistress and me, nor why I am wasting my
time talking to an old woman about my affairs, which she
can neither understand nor take part in"
"Master Stanley, it won't do. I heard it — I could
not help hearing. I little thought you had any such matter
to speak —- and you spoke so sudden like, I could not help
it. You were angry, and raised your voice. What could
old Tamar do? I heard it all before I knew where I
was."
"I really think, Tamar, you've taken leave of your
wits — you are quite in the clouds. Come, Tamar, tell
me, once for all — only drop your voice a little, if you
please—what the plague has got into your old head. Come,
I say, what is it?"
He stooped and leaned his ear to Tamar; and when