" Which being so, I wonder why he did anticipate, or who
asked him to it.) Let me not, I say, anticipate. This same book took up
all my spare time. It was no play to get the other articles together in
the general miscellaneous lot, but when it come to my own article! There!
I couldn't have believed the blotting, nor yet the buckling to at it, nor
the patience over it. Which again is like the footboard. The public
have no idea.
At last it was done, and the two years' time was gone after all the other
time before it, and where it's all gone to, who knows? The new cart was
finished,--yellow outside, relieved with wermilion and brass
fittings,--the old horse was put in it, a new 'un and a boy being laid on
for the Cheap Jack cart,--and I cleaned myself up to go and fetch her.
Bright cold weather it was, cart-chimneys smoking, carts pitched private
on a piece of waste ground over at Wandsworth, where you may see 'em from
the Sou'western Railway when not upon the road. (Look out of the right-
hand window going down.)
"Marigold," says the gentleman, giving his hand hearty, "I am very glad
to see you."
"Yet I have my doubts, sir," says I, "if you can be half as glad to see
me as I am to see you."
"The time has appeared so long,--has it, Marigold?"
"I won't say that, sir, considering its real length; but--"
"What a start, my good fellow!"
Ah! I should think it was! Grown such a woman, so pretty, so
intelligent, so expressive! I knew then that she must be really like my
child, or I could never have known her, standing quiet by the door.
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