JESSIE’S ACQUAINTANCE MADE. 55

for ale in a small jug. When she returned, and
showed what her errand had been, the youth started
up, exclaiming against his own forgetfulness, and
took from the pocket of his great-coat, which he
had laid upon the floor, two bottles of wine, which
he said he had brought for them, and which he
believed would prove good. The old and the young
lady both expressed surprise, and then they all
three sat down to supper with the most apparent
cordiality. The old woman’s tripe was excellent,
and well cooked, and Williams's wine was as good
as need be drunk; but here, before it could be
drunk, there occurred a little difficulty. The wine-
glasses of the patten-maker’s wife were locked up
in a corner-cupboard of this room ; she would not
entrust her keys to her lodgers, nor would they
admit her into the room, lest she should recognise
Mr. Osborne’s apprentice, whom she well knew, in
the young visitor who usually came in so muffled
up and disguised that he passed for one of the
players themselves. Two little china cups, there-
fore, that stoodé on the mantel-piece as ornaments,
were substituted instead ; the old woman having one
to herself, and Jessie and her lover—for lover he was
—the other between them. After supper, which
all three had seemed greatly to enjoy, the old
woman swept up the hearth, cleared away the
supper-things, and sticking the corks into the
bottles, lest, as she said, such good wine should
spoil, seated herself in a low-armed chair, and,
throwing her apron over her face, lay back as if to
sleep ; whilst Jessie and the young man resumed
their seats on the sofa, and shortly afterwards fell
into deep conversation.