One night Sally found out she was not asleep.

“I’m a rare hand at talking folks to sleep,” said she.  “I’ll try on thee, for thou must get strength by sleeping and eating.  What must I talk to thee about, I wonder.  Shall I tell thee a love story or a fairy story, such as I’ve telled Master Thurstan many a time and many a time, for all his father set his face again fairies, and called it vain talking; or shall I tell you the dinner I once cooked, when Mr. Harding, as was Miss Faith’s sweetheart, came unlooked for, and we’d nought in the house but a neck of mutton, out of which I made seven dishes, all with a different name?”

“Who was Mr. Harding?” asked Ruth.

“Oh, he was a grand gentleman from Lunnon, as had seen Miss Faith, and been struck by her pretty looks when she was out on a visit, and came here to ask her to marry him.  She said, ’No, she would never leave Master Thurstan, as could never marry;’ but she pined a deal at after he went away.  She kept up afore Master Thurstan, but I seed her fretting, though I never let on that I did, for I thought she’d soonest get over it and be thankful at after she’d the strength to do right.  However, I’ve no business to be talking of Miss Benson’s concerns.  I’ll tell you of my own sweethearts and welcome, or I’ll tell you of the dinner, which was the grandest thing I ever did in my life, but I thought a Lunnoner should never think country folks knew nothing; and, my word, I puzzled him with his dinner.  I’m doubting whether to this day he knows whether what he was eating was fish, flesh, or fowl.  Shall I tell you how I managed?”

But Ruth said she would rather hear about Sally’s sweethearts; much to the disappointment of the latter, who considered the dinner by far the greatest achievement.

“Well, you see, I don’t know as I should call them sweethearts; for excepting John Rawson, who was shut up in a mad-house the next week, I never had what you may call a downright offer of marriage but once.  But I had once; and so I may say I had a sweetheart.  I was beginning to be afeard though, for one likes to be axed; that’s but civility; and I remember, after I had turned forty, and afore Jeremiah Dixon had spoken, I began to think John Rawson had perhaps not been so very mad, and that I’d done ill to lightly his offer, as a madman’s, if it was to be the only one I was ever to have; I don’t mean as I’d have had him, but I thought, if it was to come o’er again, I’d speak respectful of him to folk, and say it were only his way to go about on all-fours, but that he was a sensible man in most things.  However I’d had my laugh, and so had others, at my crazy lover, and it was late now to set him up as a Solomon.  However, I thought it would be no bad thing to be tried again; but I little thought the trial would come when it did.  You see, Saturday night is a leisure night in counting-houses and such-like places, while it’s the busiest of all for servants.