"
"You may lose all yet," muttered the stranger, with a sneer, as he rose
and left the building.
"Yes," said Katy, following him with her eyes, "he knows your failing,
Harvey; he thinks with me, now the old gentleman is gone, you will want
a careful body to take care of your concerns."
The peddler was busied in making arrangements for his departure, and he
took no notice of this insinuation, while the spinster returned again to
the attack. She had lived so many years in expectation of a termination
to her hopes, so different from that which now seemed likely to occur,
that the idea of separation began to give her more uneasiness than she
had thought herself capable of feeling, about a man so destitute and
friendless.
"Have you another house to go to?" inquired Katy.
"Providence will provide me with a home."
"Yes," said the housekeeper, "but maybe 'twill not be to your liking."
"The poor must not be difficult."
"I'm sure I'm anything but a difficult body," cried the spinster, very
hastily; "but I love to see things becoming, and in their places; yet I
wouldn't be hard to persuade to leave this place myself. I can't say I
altogether like the ways of the people hereabouts."
"The valley is lovely," said the peddler, with fervor, "and the people
like all the race of man.
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