and those my father bought for his own reading, and which I liked,
though I only caught a glimpse of their meaning by strenuous study.
To this day Sheridan's Comedies, Sterne's Sentimental Journey, and
Captain Cook's Voyages are so mixed up in my remembrance that I am
still uncertain whether it was Sterne who ate baked dog with Maria, or
Sheridan who wept over a dead ass in the Sandwich Islands.

After I had made a dash at and captured my book, I seated myself with
difficulty on the edge of the chest of drawers, and was soon lost in
an Esquimaux hut. Presently, in crossing my feet, my shoes, which were
large, dropped on the painted floor with a loud noise. I looked at my
aunt; her regards were still fixed upon me, but they did not interfere
with her occupation of knitting; neither did they interrupt her habit
of chewing cloves, flagroot, or grains of rice. If these articles were
not at hand, she chewed a small chip.

"Aunt Merce, poor Hepburn chewed his shoes, when he was in Davis's
Straits."

"Mary, look at that child's stockings."

Mother raised her eyes from the _Boston Recorder_, and the article
she had been absorbed in the proceedings of an Ecclesiastical Council,
which had discussed (she read aloud to Aunt Merce) the conduct of
Brother Thaddeus Turner, pastor of the Congregational Church of
Hyena. Brother Thaddeus had spoken lightly of the difference between
Sprinkling and Immersion, and had even called Hyena's Baptist minister
"_Brother_." He was contumacious at first, was Brother Thaddeus, but
Brother Boanerges from Andover finally floored him.