everybody is putting it to itself--as something very uncommon. But never
mind! I am used to having what I say mocked at in this house. It's
nothing new to me to have my words passed over as if they hadn't been
spoken. I can bear it and it don't alter my duty. I am bound to go on
a-doing what I believe to be right just the same, however I am treated.
I can't sit by and say nothing when I know that I ought to lift up my
voice in warning. So I say again--you can mark my word or not as you
think best--that we are all a-going to see some mighty wild sights
before we see the last of that comet's tail."

"Pooh! Pooh! Pooh!" cried the widow Broadnax, roughly and hoarsely, as
she nearly always spoke, and sitting up suddenly among her cushions.
"Who's afraid of a comet with only one tail? I'll have you to know,
sister Penelope, that my grandmother--my own grandmother and Robert's
own grandmother, not yours--could remember the famous comet of
seventeen hundred and forty-four, and that had six tails."

Miss Penelope was daunted and silenced for the moment. She did not mind
the greater number of the rival comet's tails. It was not that which
made her feel herself at a disadvantage. It was the slur at her lesser
relationship to the master of the house. Any reference to that was a
blow which never failed to make her flinch; and one which the widow
never lost a chance to deal. But Miss Penelope had not yielded an inch
through the ceaseless contention of years, and held her ground now;
since there was nothing to say in reply, she ignored the taunt as she
had done all that had gone before. She turned upon William Pressley,
however, as we are prone to turn upon those whom we do not fear, when we
dare not attack those with whom we are really offended.

"Well, William, maybe you think that the early dying and the going blind