seat and his pipe.

"Well," said she, putting her apron to her eyes, "you have been away a
good six years, and left me to get on how I could with these two poor
orphanless children."

"You know best why I went," replied my father, "and by whose means I was
walked off in such a hurry."

"Me?" replied my mother.

"Yes, you," responded my father.

"Well, what next?" cried she.

"I'll tell you what next," said my father, rising, and taking about
eighteen inches of inch-and-a-half rope out of his pocket, "Look you,
ma'am, when I first found out that it was by your peaching that I was
sent on board of the tender, I made up this colt, and I vowed that I
would keep it in my pocket till I served you out. Now the time's come."

Here my father flourished his rope's end. My mother would have flown to
the door, but my father was beforehand with her; he turned the key, and,
to the astonishment of Virginia and me, he seized my mother, and,
holding her at arm's length, gave her several blows--not severe ones, I
must acknowledge, indeed, they could not have hurt her.

"There," said my father, "it's well for you, my Lady's ladies' maid,
that I did not fall in with you when I first made up this colt; and it's
well for you that I've heard a good character of you from the old chap