They were now both standing by the side of her couch, and she was working
at her lace-pillow. "Your daughter tells me," said Barbox Brothers,
still in a half-reluctant shamefaced way, "that she never sits up."

"No, sir, nor never has done. You see, her mother (who died when she was
a year and two months old) was subject to very bad fits, and as she had
never mentioned to me that she _was_ subject to fits, they couldn't be
guarded against. Consequently, she dropped the baby when took, and this
happened."

"It was very wrong of her," said Barbox Brothers with a knitted brow, "to
marry you, making a secret of her infirmity.'

"Well, sir!" pleaded Lamps in behalf of the long-deceased. "You see,
Phoebe and me, we have talked that over too. And Lord bless us! Such a
number on us has our infirmities, what with fits, and what with misfits,
of one sort and another, that if we confessed to 'em all before we got
married, most of us might never get married."

"Might not that be for the better?"

"Not in this case, sir," said Phoebe, giving her hand to her father.

"No, not in this case, sir," said her father, patting it between his own.

"You correct me," returned Barbox Brothers with a blush; "and I must look
so like a Brute, that at all events it would be superfluous in me to
confess to _that_ infirmity. I wish you would tell me a little more
about yourselves. I hardly knew how to ask it of you, for I am conscious
that I have a bad stiff manner, a dull discouraging way with me, but I