admiringly. "Well, we were a-speaking about the meeting over to the
ledge; I don't know's I like them people any to speak of. They had a
great revival over there in the fall, and one Sunday I thought's how I'd
go; and when I got there, who should be a-prayin' but old Ben Patey,--he
always lays out to get converted,--and he kep' it up diligent till I
couldn't stand it no longer; and by and by says he, 'I've been a
wanderer'; and I up and says, 'Yes, you have, I'll back ye up on that,
Ben; ye've wandered around my wood-lot and spoilt half the likely young
oaks and ashes I've got, a-stealing your basket-stuff.' And the folks
laughed out loud, and up he got and cleared. He's an awful old thief,
and he's no idea of being anything else. I wa'n't a-goin' to set there
and hear him makin' b'lieve to the Lord. If anybody's heart is in it, I
ain't a-goin' to hender 'em; I'm a professor, and I ain't ashamed of it,
week-days nor Sundays neither. I can't bear to see folks so pious to
meeting, and cheat yer eye-teeth out Monday morning. Well, there! we
ain't none of us perfect; even old Parson Moody was round-shouldered,
they say."

"You were speaking of the Becketts just now," said Mr. Lorimer (after we
had stopped laughing, and Mrs. Bonny had settled her big steel-bowed
spectacles, and sat looking at him with an expression of extreme wisdom.
One might have ventured to call her "peart," I think). "How do they get
on? I am seldom in this region nowadays, since Mr. Reid has taken it
under his charge."

"They get along, somehow or 'nother," replied Mrs. Bonny; "they've got
the best farm this side of the ledge, but they're dreadful lazy and
shiftless, them young folks. Old Mis' Hate-evil Beckett was tellin' me
the other day--she that was Samanthy Barnes, you know--that one of the
boys got fighting, the other side of the mountain, and come home with