fear!"

"And now," said Sam, "I vote we have some fun in the garden."

Some readers may be disposed to doubt, after this specimen, whether
the young Merrifields could be really young ladies and gentlemen; but
indeed their birth might make them so; for there had been Squire
Merrifields at Stokesley as long as Stokesley had been a parish, and
those qualities of honour and good breeding that mark the gentleman
had not been wanting to the elder members of the family. The father
of these children was a captain in the navy, and till within the last
six years the children had lived near Plymouth; but when he inherited
the estate they came thither, and David and the two little ones had
been born at Stokesley. The property was not large; and as Captain
Merrifield was far from rich, it took much management to give all
this tribe of boys and girls a good education, as well as plenty of
bread and butter, mutton, and apple-pudding. There was very little
money left to be spent upon ornament, or upon pleasuring; so they
were brought up to the most homely dress suited to their station, and
were left entirely to the country enjoyments that spring up of
themselves. Company was seldom seen, for Papa and Mamma had little
time or means for visiting; and a few morning calls and a little
dining out was all they did; which tended to make the young ones more
shy and homely, more free and rude, more inclined to love their own
ways and despise those of other people, than if they had seen more of
the world. They were a happy, healthy set of children, not faulty in
essentials, but, it must be confessed, a little wild, rough and
uncivil, in spite of the code of fines.