herself upon a stool and learn the doctrine of predestination before
breakfast.

The kitchen was lighted only by one tallow candle and the firelight,
for it was still far from dawn. Letitia drew her little stool close
to the hearth, and bent anxiously over the fire-lit page. She
committed to memory easily, and repeated the text like a frightened
parrot when she was called upon.

"The child has good parts, though she is woefully ignorant," said
Goodwife Hopkins aside to her husband. "It shall be my care to
instruct her."

Letitia, having completed her task, was given her breakfast. It was
only a portion of corn-meal porridge in a pewter plate. She had never
had such a strange breakfast in her life, and she did not like
corn-meal. She sat with it untasted before her.

"Why don't you eat?" asked her great-great-great-grandmother
severely.

"I--don't--like--it," faltered Letitia.

If possible, they were all more shocked by that than they had been by
her ignorance.

"She doesn't like the good porridge," the little great-great-aunts
said to each other.

"Eat the porridge," commanded Captain John Hopkins sternly, when he