 a necessity of life.«
    »But Charlotte,« continued Coggan - »not a word of the sort would Charlotte
allow, nor the smallest item of taking in vain.... Ay, poor Charlotte, I wonder
if she had the good fortune to get into Heaven when 'a died! But 'a was never
much in luck's way and perhaps 'a went downwards after all, poor soul.«
    »And did any of you know Miss Everdene's father and mother?« inquired the
shepherd, who found some difficulty in keeping the conversation in the desired
channel.
    »I knew them a little,« said Jacob Smallbury; »but they were townsfolk, and
didn't live here. They've been dead for years. Father, what sort of people were
mis'ess father and mother?«
    »Well,« said the maltster, »he wasn't much to look at; but she was a lovely
woman. He was fond enough of her as his sweetheart.«
    »Used to kiss her scores and long-hundreds o' times, so 'twas said,«
observed Coggan.
    »He was very proud of her, too, when they were married, as I've been told,«
said the maltster.
    »Ay,« said Coggan. »He admired her so much that he used to light the candle
three times a night to look at her.«
    »Boundless love; I shouldn't have supposed it in the universe!« murmured
Joseph Poorgrass, who habitually spoke on a large scale in his moral
reflections.
    »Well, to be sure,« said Gabriel.
    »Oh, 'tis true enough. I knowed the man and woman both well. Levi Everdene -
that was the man's name, sure. Man, saith I in my hurry, but he were of a higher
circle of life than that - 'a was a gentleman-tailor really, worth scores of
pounds. And he became a very celebrated bankrupt two or three times.«
    »Oh, I thought he was quite a common man!« said Joseph.
    »O no, no! That man failed for heaps of money; hundreds in gold and silver.«
    The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr. Coggan, after absently
scrutinizing a coal which had fallen among the ashes, took up the narrative,
with a private twirl of his eye: -
    »Well, now, you'd hardly believe it, but that man - our Miss Everdene's
father - was one
