wish you would."

"With all our hearts, sir," returned Lamps gaily for both. "And first of
all, that you may know my name--"

"Stay!" interposed the visitor with a slight flush. "What signifies your
name? Lamps is name enough for me. I like it. It is bright and
expressive. What do I want more?"

"Why, to be sure, sir," returned Lamps. "I have in general no other name
down at the Junction; but I thought, on account of your being here as a
first-class single, in a private character, that you might--"

The visitor waved the thought away with his hand, and Lamps acknowledged
the mark of confidence by taking another rounder.

"You are hard-worked, I take for granted?" said Barbox Brothers, when the
subject of the rounder came out of it much dirtier than be went into it.

Lamps was beginning, "Not particular so"--when his daughter took him up.

"Oh yes, sir, he is very hard-worked. Fourteen, fifteen, eighteen hours
a day. Sometimes twenty-four hours at a time."

"And you," said Barbox Brothers, "what with your school, Phoebe, and what
with your lace-making--"

"But my school is a pleasure to me," she interrupted, opening her brown
eyes wider, as if surprised to find him so obtuse. "I began it when I
was but a child, because it brought me and other children into company,